Rishit Sharma
Delhi
Writing
Automation

I Automated My Job and Now My Code Is My Boss

Rishit Sharma
by Rishit Sharma

When I started building ZapFlow, my cutting-edge automation platform, I had one simple goal: make tedious tasks disappear. Fast-forward six months, and I'm pretty sure my automation has become sentient and is judging my efficiency.

The greatest irony of working on automation tools is that you spend countless manually-intensive hours building something that will save other people time. It's like sweating for days to build a hammock—by the time you're done, you're too exhausted to enjoy it.

Here are some unexpected lessons from creating ZapFlow:

  1. The 'automate everything' mindset is dangerous - I tried to automate my coffee preparation and ended up with a script that ordered 47 espresso machines on Amazon. My credit card company now sends me intervention letters.

  2. Workflows reveal organizational dysfunction - "So you're telling me that before a document gets approved, it needs to be emailed to 12 people, printed, scanned, converted to PDF, renamed, and then someone performs an interpretive dance?" Yes, that's apparently how some companies operate.

  3. Users will find ways to break your system that you could never imagine - I built robust error handling for every scenario except "What if someone pastes the entire script of Bee Movie into the input field?" Spoiler alert: someone did.

The most fascinating part of building automation tools is watching how people's relationship with work evolves. Initially, users are skeptical and protective of their manual processes. Then comes the "automation honeymoon" where they're automating everything from work reports to birthday reminders. Finally, they reach "automation enlightenment" where they understand what should be automated and what needs human touch.

ZapFlow has transformed how dozens of teams work, but the real transformation happened to me. I now see every repetitive task as a potential automation opportunity. My friends no longer invite me to help with anything because I'll inevitably respond with "You know, you could build a script for that."

In conclusion, if you hear distant mechanical laughter when you make an inefficient decision, don't worry—it's just your automation platform evolving beyond your control. And no, I haven't built a kill switch. That would be inefficient.