Also, make sure you have to do something essential that no one else knows how to do to make the automation work so you don't risk getting fired or if they fire you they don't profit from the tools you created.

There was a user on Tales from tech support that had tons of great stories including one where he left with all the documentation for the tools he had created over years of work for a company and they were left with useless tools once he was gone!

I did a co-op position at the federal government during my undergrad where I automated my main task. I told my boss and he said that the efficiency was too high; they couldn't maintain the script when I left. He asked me to only report results in the usual timeframe (4 hours instead of 45 minutes) and to maybe download some Netflix.

the ideal boss thinks your job is way harder than it is

Always under promise.