I worked with my future wife in the same office and in the same office. She is an accountant, and I am Sysadmin. We just started somehow communicating and showing a little sympathy. Once we drank tea together, we talked, and she told me that for a week she’s been doing some kind of boredom by compiling a few huge tables in Excel.



I will not remember the specific task over the years, but the essence was about something: we take a line from the first file, there is a transaction code. In the second and subsequent documents there are one or more relevant lines of this transaction, but with other data (the payment there is somewhat broken or something else), while the code of this line contains the source code, but the format has a different, and even a few different types. You need to find these corresponding rows, count by the formula of numbers from different columns, and if the result did not coincide with the source file - it means something is not hit there, and you need to clarify these transactions.



In fact, the task of the spouse and was to make a list of transactions and contractors for which something is missing. Documents on several hundred lines each, and the task is repeated every quarter. Time she usually spent about a week on it, headaches and red eyes were attached.



After asking for details and realizing that the task is absolutely routine, and it is her sin not to automate, I suggested it. As a result, got a few examples of old files with already known results to practice, started to perform.

Well, short of my knowledge of VBA and macros Excel was enough for a couple of days I presented her the first version of the "program", where it was enough to put all the files in one folder, call the desired names and click the "Make beautiful" button on the form - and after a couple of minutes was ready the final file, satisfying the desired result. The list appeared, the desired rows in the source files were highlighted in color so that they could be easily found.



The girl was delighted, even more, to spend two minutes on what she had done before a week!

Of course, then there were a few cracks, then there was a new form of originals, I worked out my macros several times, and then I left that office, we married, began to live, and sometimes this story with macros to remember.

Morality: Knowledge of even the basics of programming can be useful in completely unpredictable circumstances. Or not.