Finding
A manual conveyor
A process that repeats identically and is performed by hand each time.
Somebody opens four tabs, copies from one into another, checks the result, and sends it on. Next week they do it again. The steps have not changed in months, which is exactly what makes them worth automating and exactly why nobody has: a task that never surprises anyone also never becomes urgent.
The tell is that the person doing it can describe the whole thing in under two minutes. Anything describable that fast is a specification, and a specification is most of the work.
The other tell is the reverse of the usual complaint. People do not say it is hard; they say it is fine. It is fine, and it costs a day a week, and both of those are true at once.
The cheapest condition to treat and the one left longest.
The next step
Bring the number to a call. Once the hours a week are on the table, the arithmetic decides the rest in about ten minutes.
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