The tyranny of conditional color formatting

Conditional color formatting - that's when the cell color changes according to certain values. The changes may be done automatically or manually.

While many have lauded the usefulness of this feature, some are using it as a tool of tyranny.

'They only want their spreadsheets to turn green. Their whole job is, apparently, staring at spreadsheets and just hoping – from the turrets of their ivory towers – that they will turn green.'

        From:  'When apathetic and feckless students mess up their GCSEs, we teachers are accused of being lazy or ineffective'

'Highlighting is what keeps me awake at night. Specifically, the coloured highlighting on the spreadsheets that my school uses to track pupil progress: red for "underachieving"; amber for "on track" and green for "exceeding expectations".'

       From: 'I am haunted by the coloured highlighting on the spreadsheets that my school uses to track pupil progress data'