I don't mean to nitpick, but the sysadmins you're talking about are the bad sysadmins (or maybe just mediocre sysadmins). Any sysadmin worth his salt knows that

I don't mean to nitpick, but the sysadmins you're talking about are the bad sysadmins (or maybe just mediocre sysadmins). Any sysadmin worth his salt knows that when you automate something, you only have to do it once, and you remove any mistakes down the road. Once you have the script written and tested, you don't have to worry about typos ever again. If it weren't for automation, my job would be unbearable, but writing scripts to automate systems is the most fun I get to have in my day job.