I write scripts to do stuff like this. I'm not a good programmer, but I'm a lazy engineer, and lazy trumps not good. Occasionally someone will say "you should share that script with the group." Terrible idea. Forgot to manually delete the top two rows of headers from the text file? Horrible errors as it tries to parse and do math on text. Have the data in the right format but columns in a different order? No errors and output that's wrong but not obviously wrong. Someone at work is going to run a study nobody but me has done. I've told them repeatedly that they can't just mimic what I did, they have to understand it. More recently I told them they can use the stuff I used but should consider it utterly unsupported. They gave me this look of shock I can only describe as a spoiled teenager told they aren't getting a new car on their 16th birthday. They invited me to their meetings. With my boss's approval, I declined the invite and took some pleasure in doing so.
I haven't, but I'm going to jot that down. I never liked that interview question, and I love the way you spun it.
Reminded me of the phenomenon web &/or print designers face, when clients/coworkers act all, "my son has photoshop so it can't be that hard" or "all you need is a computer and the software," treating you like a replaceable monkey sitting at a computer. No. You need the computer, the software AND someone with years of experience knowing how to use them to achieve what they want.