Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not convinced there’s a such thing as “correct usage of excel.” What a lot of companies do is just scare entry level employees into being very careful. My friend’s girlfriend works at a place like this and people just accept all the problems with manually editing large spreadsheets because “that’s just life.” Anything in excel is a hack and most of its users don’t know any better.
What's your solution? That the manager who wanted some report comes to you and begs you to do it and in 6 months it's finally delivered and all wrong?
If they have knowledgeable people there, it will take no longer than coding something up in Excel and will be more reliable.