I think these days average airbus guys are on the verge of being overloaded even if the automation is on and on a nice day.
What in God's name can be so demanding that they can't monitor your flying?
But when something goes wrong, they are trying to use automation to fix it. And that is often even more difficult than just take over manually.
Amen. When the "AP" screws up, I often have to sit and diagnose the problem. Meanwhile, I'm still travelling at 200+kts and getting higher above the glideslope. Quite often, I find that the fastest remedy is to turn off the AP and FD (because it can be distracting) and just fly the bloody plane.