And it is not really punishing, yet at least. He likes his new job despite the mess he was put in. He loves it because he learns so many new things (analytics, how the be a better manager, etc) and how he has managed to make his team actually deliver a lot of value to the company in spite of these problems. It is possibly that the challenge will be too big for him and it will burn him out but so far he likes it.
And, no, it is very unlikely to be intended as a punishment. More likely he got it because he was too interested in getting good reports. The usual accidental volunteering where if you are too interested in something you end up doing all the hard work.
