SILICON VALLEY USERS GUIDE: How do I get my sysadmin to do anything?:

No one sets out to be a professional systems administrator -- do you ever see kids wearing toy pagers playing sysadmin? For those fluent with computers but uninterested in writing huge software programs, it's a pretty good job. Except for the part where they have to deal with you.
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• Say hello. Even when you don't need something. You say a big Hi to the pretty lady at the front desk every time you pass. Why not treat the tech guy the same? Sure, he doesn't say anything back. Don't be fooled. Sysadmins are like cats -- he won't acknowledge you, but he's mentally keeping score.
• Don't question what he does all day. Systems administrators are like firemen and cops. If you don't have a couple of bored ones hanging around, you'll be sorry when there's an emergency.

Much of this is just a caricature of sysadmins. However, the most important points here, which management overlooks time and again in nearly every organization, are that there is often no visible work output from what we do and often we're working even when it may look like we're not. It's important to remember that it's when it seems we have nothing to do that we're doing our jobs best. Trying to fill that "underutilized" time simply prevents the ongoing smooth running of operations.

So, often 'no visible output from what we do' really means: "Management isn't reading logs", or "yes, cron's still running!" You could give them a suggestion for what to replace you with, http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/374d/

:)

If you break stuff that easy to fix from time to time, they can tell you are doing stuff. I have other great ideas too, but no one ever asks.

Unfortunately, I'd be afraid they would just turn it around at me.

So, if that's the fear, just write the script and leave off the

#!/bin/sh

that way you'd still be required to be there to run it, AND... it'd be a reportable 'work output' :)

"script run 37 times this day sir!"