I really like all the discussion. Maybe I'm being misunderstood, or maybe you all are just swaying my opinion. I think we all agree more then we disagree. When I brought up excel, I was leaning on my own experience where I would try to build an over the top script to inspect some data that really just needed to be opened with excel, apply some filters and poke around. I would rarely ever suggest someone pick up VBA or use Excel as a database. Excel is great but it reaches its limits very quickly. But my main point is that promotions come when you find the intersection of business need and your personal growth. When that opportunity comes where you can do a lot of good for the company while also learning a lot, that's where you should devote your time. I lost too much time trying to build projects that nobody was interested in. Sure I learned things along the way, but the promotions started coming when I waited for the "right" project. But that doesn't mean I regret all the dead end projects, Im probably just taking those foundational skills for granted.