Early in my career (23 years old) I made the mistake of automating (rule 4) and bragging about it. I wrote some scripts that automated AutoCAD drawing calculations and spit out some spreadsheets. It would save a draftsman or engineer the entire morning of work every business day.
Naive and hungry for recognition, I even did a couple presentations about the process and was very proud of myself.
Later, I was reprimanded by an 'old school' director for taking shortcuts and changing processes that were well-established. There was no process change, my script performed the same calculations that a draftsman/engineer would click and commit to paper every morning.... zero room for error.
My boss was also reprimanded for letting the 'new kids they hired' run amok and do things however they liked.
They still used my script though and began giving our group new responsibilities to manage with the time I had freed up.
Naive and hungry for recognition, I even did a couple presentations about the process and was very proud of myself.
Later, I was reprimanded by an 'old school' director for taking shortcuts and changing processes that were well-established. There was no process change, my script performed the same calculations that a draftsman/engineer would click and commit to paper every morning.... zero room for error.
My boss was also reprimanded for letting the 'new kids they hired' run amok and do things however they liked.
They still used my script though and began giving our group new responsibilities to manage with the time I had freed up.