[cail]

I agree with this but it shows an even bigger problem in my mind. It seems to me that the author has decided that employees attempting to automate bureaucratic tasks is worse than just doing it himself. This seems like a wildly inefficient way to manage. Maybe I'm missing something though.

For example, regarding the time sheets, if I could write a quick script that automates the process of filling it out (correctly) in three hours and it would have taken me twenty minutes to fill it out by hand, what's the problem? after only nine weeks I have earned back that three hours in productive time. If I were to distribute it to the entire team of fifteen people and they each take a similar amount of time to fill out the sheets then we are already ahead.