"they figured hey, what better way for him to find all the pain points and automate them"
So, I'm not clear on why you haven't been able to do that?
I got to where I hated the developer culture, and got a job that was outside of it, where I had access to nothing except MS Office, and had the epiphany that it's Turing complete, I can do anything!
In a nutshell I'm spending most or all of my time using the tools (keeping up with a queue) not working on them. To work on them I need either permission to fall behind in the queue (probably not an option) or someone else to cover for me. I'll probably pursue that latter option.
So, I'm not clear on why you haven't been able to do that?
I got to where I hated the developer culture, and got a job that was outside of it, where I had access to nothing except MS Office, and had the epiphany that it's Turing complete, I can do anything!