IN MY MORE LUCID moments, I do appreciate that not everyone has a high opinion of spreadsheet jockeys. Take this definition from 3i. Its web-based glossary (www.3i.com/media/pu.html) says a spreadsheet jockey is "A well-known character in modern business, who loves analysing figures for the sake or it, but whose spreadsheets don't really add much to the sum of human knowledge."

I'm rather offended. Mind you, they should read the definition of private equity managers in the Spreadsheet Jockey Handbook – it's not "masters of the universe", for sure, although it does rhyme with "bankers". Apart from anything else, recent experience with a fellow spreadsheet jockey has convinced me we cannot only add knowledge, we can be a compassionate bunch, too.

Naturally I blame FD for forcing me to face this unpalatable truth. A few weeks back, he finally secured a prize he'd coveted for many years: a non-executive directorship. OK, so it wasn't the FTSE 100 posting of his dreams. The company is an, as yet,modest firm selling software into Blaminio's market. Management had secured funding from some bunch of w... sorry, some private equity firm for an MBO. The equity boys figured that FD's experience of strategic planning would stand the firm in good stead as it entered a new growth phase. As would, of course, his contacts in our sector. Not daft, these lads.

FD went off to meet his fellow directors – and came back horrified. Before I could find out why, I'd been volunteered on what he called a "project secondment" basis to this company. Blaminio's board was happy enough, citing the "cross fertilisation of best practice with non-competing but similarly entrepreneurial entities." In other words, the software looked as if it could be useful to us, and we'd get a special price if we lent a hand.

FD's concern? It turned out that the MBO FD had been over-promoted and his communication skills were... sub-optimal. Coming from our FD, that's a bit like Gordon Brown moaning about Dawn Primarolo's poor sense of humour. We'd also have to spend some time on MBO FD's spreadsheets "in case there was any mutually beneficial lessons to be learned," said FD.

The first thing I noticed about MBO FD was that whenever he tried to explain anything, he went bright red. So that's what FD meant by communication problems. Mind you, his spreadsheets did something similar when we interrogated them, too. Even I was overwhelmed with the minutiae this guy had built in. He had dozens of sheets just for one cost centre report, which went into every single budget line down to the cost of milk in the canteen. And then there were endless variance analyses – variances I had never even heard of – and myriad percentages. The stock list made Das Kapital look like the Da Vinci Code.

What really amazed me was how they were all set up. When I suggested one small change, he spent the next hour going through every worksheet manually adjusting the figure I had suggested. Nothing was linked, he didn't use any formulae – so every last penny had to be hand-traced and altered. I felt ill at the thought of it. I mean, you might tell someone tweaking their forecast numbers will take all afternoon, but the idea is to be able to do it in five minutes and get down the pub, not still be hunched over the PC at 9pm.

Then the VC asked for scenario-based cash flow forecasts. MBO FD lit up like a late-blooming azalea and got his head down, but at this rate it would take him until the end of time. I had to help. We stripped out all his verbiage, we summarised, we concentrated core data, we put in formulae, we linked... It took weeks. He and I learnt to communicate – and, bizarrely, I enjoyed myself. Honour among spreadsheet jockeys – who'd have thought. The end result? The cash flow came in on two sheets. Two sheets that even the investment bankers and non-execs could understand. And that, to my mind, is more than a fair contribution to "the sum of human knowledge"!