my favorite project, which was only my 2nd project involving
   excel and visual basic, was when i was a temp at a
   pharmaceutical company. i had to pull together data from
   hundreds tiny little text files, automate the import, create
   complex formulas to grab the data and do whatever metrics had to
   be done, pull in more data from other sources (internet, a
   microsoft access database, other excel files)... - and this file
   had a few dozen tabs on it, and 30 pages worth of programming
   when it was done - and it created about 7500 unique reports that
   had to be dropped off to be distributed automatically to 7500
   laptops all around the country, once a week. My reward was a
   high paying full time job - I sorta demanded it - I started
   getting my 8 hours done in 4 hours, skipping off to do some
   college work on the side. They were afraid to lose me at that
   poi... "