It's a thing I keep running into over and over again. I'm really happy that you haven't and that for you personally this is not an issue. Unfortunately your sample of '1' may not be representative.
Well I'll add my sample size to make it a sample of 2.
I don't really see people being told they cannot code. I see them being encouraged and encouraged... And they give up.
Because coding longer term often is a Temperament thing. The person learning.has to persevere banging their head against a brick wall ( their own skill, the lack of feedback from computers ) day in and day out.
That's not for everybody.
I am bemused that coding has such a mystique when in reality coding is something akin to metalwork combined with plumbing. Not everyone wants to be a plumber either, but most people could do a reasonable job if given a crash course and some context to use it in
None of these things are magic. None of these things are something someone can't learn "a little" about.
And yet, like programming, all of these require a great deal of effort to master any degree of proficiency; this 1) takes individual dedication, and 2) is undermined for individuals when they're told repeatedly and incorrectly that being a "programmer" is a label, and that it's easy.
As an example of what I mean, the word 'mathematician' usually refers to someone who works as an academic in a University department and teaches advanced mathematics and who contributes research. This is hard, requires considerable focus and dedication.
Most people in societies with good educational systems can do mental arithmetic, and a majority could learn to apply mathematical results to situations e.g. at work if they needed to. Some countries have invented a special words for this latter kind of maths use - 'numeracy' and 'functional skills' are in use in the UK.
So again the word 'programmer' or its various synonyms covers your case - a 'programmer' helps to produce complex software as part of a team (usually) and spends most of their time on that.
Other people may do tasks that look a bit like the easier bits of programming as a smaller part of their job. OA mentions complex spreadsheets (and wow can they get complex but that is often part of the problem) and I'd go so far as to include a bit of bash, and perhaps a few lines of python to help in administration tasks.
Perhaps it is the last activity that we need a word for?
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/is-it-...
http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-code/
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/163631/has-no...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5302157
And many many more besides.
I wished it was a strawman, then I could have simply not written the article.