Honestly, it’s still a real job even if they feel it isn’t anymore.

They scripted some collection of mindnumbing stupid tasks, while everything works it’s all fine and they have lots of free time to “think about optimising other things in the organisation” (or in reality do whatever they like for private projects).

But when SHTF (and it always will at some point), this person is the one that can fix it all in a few hours max (and possible optimise thing further), while some external firm would struggle for weeks. That can worth keeping them on the payroll, even if the bosses are aware of the situation.

This is exactly the kind of job that should be rewarded. The person doing the exact same paper pushing for 40h a week without questioning how dumb the task is and how it could be optimised is the real resources drain.

This is the kind of automation I believe in: Bottom-up, with no permission asked and no goal but to hold down one thriving wage with minimal effort and maximum free time. My only critique is that they felt the need to brag in public. You teach this shit in secret so the bosses never twig.