Notwithstanding that this story has a 2% chance of being real, why, exactly?

1. Employee works late. Now usually this is a bad thing for everyone involved, but I assume that someone who is trigger-happy with firing would think that long hours is a good thing.

2. Given that it's a staging DB, nothing a "stop doing this" can't fix. And a talking to with the client about the problems that Kumar is causing.

3. See (1).

4. Optimizes their time away from their work.

I didn't find anything particularly egregious from an employer perspective. The automation is not any different or lazy than say setting SQL queries. Many say a lot worse about customers in slack etc. I do think less of this person for calling his wife his bitch. Kinda gross. But I am not interested in imposing my civil or moral standard on anyone. I just know I wouldn't enjoy interacting with them. Ethics are a different question because social contracts necessarily require some overlap in ethical frameworks each party is operating under, and I didn't find anything unethical. I guess I could be wrong?

Actually toxic employees are so much worse than this and seem to have jobs at companies all over.

Agreed. No bad boys allowed in the Good Boys club!