If you’re setting out to automate something in your organization, do you already know how to do the thing manually?
If you don’t, where do you get the confidence to automate it?
There’s nothing wrong with doing something manually to learn what that something is and how it’ll impact you.
I think it’s quite sensible.
(This isn’t an April Fools’ joke. Maybe next year I’ll be clever enough to do one of those.)