This is why I like the new innovation-project type in EU where you are both allowed to work for the company and sell a project to them at the same time.
The problem here is how you could sell them the system, if you are allowed in US?
Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
231–240 of 543 posts
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how much does adding drama to my work routine help my compensation rate?
Sadly, it helps. The guy in my former group who complained a lot and would push back to the management heavily was the one the manager respected the most. The problem is: His complaints were often ridiculous and did not have merit - no one was fooled by them - not even the manager who usually ignored his complaints. But his behavior (regardless of the content) was used unintentionally as a measure of how engaged the…
TPS
The manager must know the work, otherwise he can't manage. Doesn't sound like the case.
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#233I'm surprised nobody suggested going back to doing it manually. If he can live with the moral compromise of what he's already done, he can eliminate any concern on a going-forward basis simply by deleting his script and doing things the old-fashioned way.
The script is presumably company property at this time, even though they don't know about it, so destroying it would be akin to destroying company property.
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#234I think the real question is whether this person is salaried or hourly. If they're hourly, then yeah, billing 40 hours a week when you only did 2 is fraud. If salaried, I think it's okay. Here's why: Individuals in the company will be good or bad, ethical or unethical. The company itself will (likely) be largely amoral and driven solely by a profit motive. So when this person announces that he's automated himself out…
Yeah I spend half my day browsing Reddit on salary, but my work gets done and no one has ever said anything to me about it. And if they did, I'd probably just quit and get a job for a sane company.
I wouldn't say I thing about your browsing, but I would give you more work :)
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you've ever thought "I'm done for the day, but I'm going to hang out a little longer to leave at a more respectable time," then you're feeling (and doing) the same kind of thing. Not quite. First, this guy went out of his way to lie and insert extra bugs in his code to make it appear like manual labor. Second, this guy is doing it all the time, whereas normally people might only do this on occasion. You can argu…
> First, this guy went out of his way to lie and insert extra bugs in his code to make it appear like manual labor. Second, this guy is doing it all the time I don't see the difference. I've known people who intentionally work slowly or pretend to do manual labor when they've already got a process for automating it. They'll just goof around for a while and then run the automation. Whether you're introducing bugs to f…
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Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stretching it a little bit here are you, now? The guy figured out how to automate his job when no one else before him did it. Let the small guy get the fruit once in awhile. What do you think they will do if he tells them? As he said, they will just take the software and get rid of him. They won't even ask themselves if it is morally right or wrong. I say keep the good work and spend the time with your son. I wish I…
I wasn't trying to make any comment about the job-automation situation; for what it's worth, I find arguments both ways to be very persuasive. Rather, I was commenting that the moral system in the grandparent comment of essentially "decide what values are important to you, and if your country's laws don't align well enough, feel free to break those laws" is quite an eyebrow-raiser. Do you disagree?
I don't see a problem with that, as long as you understand that you will almost certainly need to face state imposed consequences when you break the laws.
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you've ever thought "I'm done for the day, but I'm going to hang out a little longer to leave at a more respectable time," then you're feeling (and doing) the same kind of thing. Not quite. First, this guy went out of his way to lie and insert extra bugs in his code to make it appear like manual labor. Second, this guy is doing it all the time, whereas normally people might only do this on occasion. You can argu…
> First, this guy went out of his way to lie and insert extra bugs in his code to make it appear like manual labor. Second, this guy is doing it all the time I don't see the difference. I've known people who intentionally work slowly or pretend to do manual labor when they've already got a process for automating it. They'll just goof around for a while and then run the automation. Whether you're introducing bugs to f…
> I don't see the difference.
Really now? Are you sure it's not a case of you not wanting to see the difference?
> Whether you're introducing bugs to fix yourself or pretending to work - the effect is the same.
Being at work and not working is quite a far cry from actively lying that you did things that you didn't do, or from inserting defects in your code so that they pay you to remove them.
It's at least honest to screw around at work when your manager can observe that fact, and merely turn in the desired output on time. You could argue (rightly or wrongly) that the manager is supposed to be the one tracking your workload.
But it's dishonest (and frankly outrageous) to actively lie about what you're doing so that your manager can't track your workload, or to insert defects so that the company -- unaware of your deliberate sabotage -- pays you to fix the "accidental" mistake.
What kind of world do you live in where intentions and honesty don't matter, and only "effects" do?
Frankly, I'm finding what I'm reading from you and others here so outrageous that I'm nearing a loss for more words. I literally cannot remember the last time (i.e. I don't think there was one) I was this disappointed at HN users and ashamed of even being among them. It's disgusting.
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#238How is this the smallest bit unethical? The person is paid to do a job and that job is done, and seemingly well. End of discussion.
If he's paid based on task completion then no ethical violation. However, if he is paid based on hours worked then there is a grey area of whether he is actually working.
An alternative take: is paying based on hours work ethical? I know that it's widespread, but in this case, it seems that if your answer depends so significantly on a thing that is of such a little relevance to the actual processes at hand (i.e. what gets done and who benefits), I can't help but wonder whether this is because the premise is just wrong.
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#239If you are paid according to time and material, you could be sailing in bad legal waters. Ask an attorney about fraudulent billing.
If you are paid like an FTE, As long as your employer is satisfied with your level of productivity, then it really does not matter how long it took you to produce results.
Nevertheless, it's shady to insert bugs into your products. My work is my pride is what matters in the end.
Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?
#240All software rots: If they had the ability to run the script this engineer built, there is a high chance the same folks would've noticed the automatability of the job.
IOW - I don't understand how the user thinks this will be taken away from him though. It would seem he is a core part to the execution of said script considering he has to adapt it to new data rules etc. once in a while.
IMO - The fact that he is spending 2 hours and billing 40 is deception though: I mean, in an ideal world, the company would totally notice if they estimated an assembly line to produce X items in Y hours and it actually ends up producing 2x items.
Now whether you can engage in said deception, whether everyone else is directly/indirectly doing it, your family situation etc. all lie in the zone of subjectiveness. You just gotta trust your gut and go with it. But one thing is sure though: You get caught, you are getting a reaction - fired/possibly worse. The hr/human ego is far too fragile to let this go in 99.9% cases.