It's very true that pilots make their money being on hand for when the **** hits the fan, but that doesn't make the day to day operation any less monotonous
I think most pilots really downplay what they do in their jobs. Have a think about it next time you go to work, and think about every time you make a judgement call in your job that an automated system would miss, no matter how small: (Slowing the aircraft early because of an un forecasted tailwind or diverting around cumulus clouds that the weather radar didn't pick up)
For me it would be 40/50 times in an average day.