Reminds me of a quote/thought (I don't recall the original source): The worst waste of time is to improve (automate) something that doesn't need to be done.

I've been there myself. I was asked to deliver to email a report that anyone could get at any time by opening a browser, but they wanted an email instead (their communication path - if our office used IM/Slack more, I can easily see them wanting that instead of the email).