This is how I feel with automating tasks. It really frees me and other people up to work on the never ending pile of work that is more valuable than just rote

This is how I feel with automating tasks. It really frees me and other people up to work on the never ending pile of work that is more valuable than just rote daily maintenance tasks. I've never been able to automate so much that I automated myself out of a job though, or anyone else for that matter. They just always get reassigned to do something else. There's always plenty of work for capable people. I think the problem comes when you are unwilling or unable to accept new work/tasks/technologies and are kind of "left behind." If a company has a lot of these manual tasks that can be easily automated, and they don't, and there's another company who has the talent and will to automate it, the slower moving company will be inevitably put out of business, because they are inherently less competitive.