Janet is the lifeblood of your home care business. She’s been around forever. She knows every client’s birthday, every cat’s name, and exactly which tea biscuit to bring with a cuppa. But more than that, she knows "The Spreadsheet."

You know the one. “The Master Sheet.” It lives on her desktop. It’s updated daily with the kind of precision that makes accountants weep. It’s protected by a password that could rival national security protocols. And only Janet knows how it works.

It holds everything. Client schedules sit neatly in Column E. Worker availability is tucked into Column G. Public holidays are marked in mauve because Janet thinks it’s calming. Incident reports? That’s Tab 17 — clearly labelled “Do Not Touch This Sheet” in all caps. The invoicing logic runs five layers deep in hidden formulas that only Janet truly understands. Or used to. Even she admits one or two bits might now be running on legacy magic.

There was the time the power went out, and with candlelight, a car battery, and sheer administrative will, Janet printed a month’s worth of care schedules on a backup printer in her garage. While others run on caffeine, Janet runs on grit and spreadsheets. She’s a national treasure.

But she’s also your single point of failure.

The day Janet called in sick;  her first sick day in 11 years, was the day the system cracked. Three staff arrived at the same client’s house. No one could find the updated medication list. Payroll ground to a halt because “the formulas weren’t calculating.” A well-meaning volunteer tried to help and accidentally deleted half the roster. Someone printed something called “FINAL_schedule_(revised)_NEWv5” and, due to a mix-up, sent three carers to Queensland.

By 10am, the operations manager had gone quiet. Just sitting there, whispering into a teacup, 

“we need a system.” Over and over again.

None of this was Janet’s fault. She saw the gaps. She built workarounds. When the CMS didn’t do what it needed to, she made her own version. When the rostering tool was clunky, she built a better one — in Excel — in three days. She’s not just good at her job. She’s extraordinary. But the system she created was never meant to be the system.

Because a business can’t scale on spreadsheets and hope. It can’t rely on one person’s memory to hold it all together. It can’t bet the wellbeing of clients, carers, and the payroll team on a file with no version control.

One day, Janet will go on a cruise. Or decide she’s had enough and move to a winery in Queenstown. Or simply want to take a break. And when that day comes, the business needs to keep running — smoothly, reliably, compliantly.

Janet deserves a system that honours everything she’s built. One that takes what she’s created and turns it into something resilient. Something that doesn’t break when she’s not at her desk. Because the risk isn’t just losing a spreadsheet. It’s losing continuity, confidence, and capacity to grow.

Janet is the hero of this story. But she shouldn’t have to save the day every single day.