Reply To: Should I resist or yield to urge for a spreadsheet?

[Metty]

I gave up spreadsheets after a secondary inspection at US immigration.

Transatlantic travel is/was the ideal time to do admin – esp pref-wifi – so I had a hard copy of my numerous Tesco Clubcards .xls spreadsheet with me and worked on it during the flight. Having had a fairly rigorous interrogation and going through all my luggage and iphone photos, the spreadsheet was the thing that caused the most angst. I had to explain to three or four different officers what they were looking at; they were convinced that they were looking at some sort of covert message and once they ‘got’ what a Clubcard was, why would I bring this into the USA where (at that time) there were no Tescos 🙂