Why Real World Excel?

A relative of mine has become the go-to guy at his work for Excel questions recently.  I was asking about his work, and we started talking about Excel.  He has made a name for himself by showing useful patterns in warehouse data at his work.  He did such a nice job that the company created a new position for him to do data analysis full time.  He is being bombarded by Excel books and "Is this possible?" questions at work, and he was asking me how I learned Excel.

I'm a software engineer by training.  As I have worked, I have found that no matter the problem, Excel usually becomes a tool in some part of delivering a piece of work.  I've seen that virtually everyone around me uses Excel extensively as well -- project managers, marketing analysts, salespeople, investors, engineers, administrators.  I expect many other professionals will also go through the advanced Excel learning process, and so I'm putting my work online with the expectation that it will save someone else time one day.