Well, theoretically you could be in a junior role that requires lots of manual functions. You could work with your manager and perhaps one other coworker, start from the bottom, and automate or seriously increase the efficiency of doing the task. The skills and business knowledge, as well as internal political connections, that you gained from doing that can then be leveraged during the increased amount of time you have to take on bigger and better projects while still maintaining your daily functions. By the time talks about promotions or new roles come up, you could argue that it's impossible to fuck up the daily tasks you'll be handing off because you made them so easy to maintain and/or repair. Your bosses boss will see the work is being done better than before and they have to bring on less headcount than they would before, plus in theory you would still to help keep an eye on the role you'll be handing off. So now things are being done more efficiently, your experience doing that has led you to propose bigger and better projects that accomplish the same thing.