The first time I drove an auto I hated it because it was rubbish. Reversing was a nightmare and it had a nasty habit of dropping into neutral at odd moments.
The second one wasn’t much better (an Actros - need I say more) also with the dropping out of gear habit, especially when pulling out onto roundabouts.
At that time I mostly drove MANs with twin splitters and took a pride in getting it right, but when I was given an auto MAN, I was converted. It was fairly new and still had the manual in the glove box which had good advice on how to get the best from it.
I have driven automatic cars for decades but trucks need a different technique and just as with the twin splitter, I wanted to master it.