Discovering the joy of automation through coding, Bob shares his experience of using Python's openpyxl module to replicate an Excel VBA macro, revealing the benefits of Python's portability and efficiency over traditional macro solutions. Despite initial challenges with xlrd due to file format compatibility, Bob successfully hacked an Excel game by leveraging openpyxl to query, update, and save workbooks without relying on macros. He highlights the power of Unix shell scripting for quick tasks and underscores the utility of regular expressions in extracting data from spreadsheets. Through this exercise, Bob emphasizes the learning potential in seemingly trivial coding projects and invites others, especially those in finance, to explore automation possibilities with Excel and openpyxl, encouraging collaboration on new ideas for enhancing workflows with Python.