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Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

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Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#281

Post by photojosh »

bjourne wrote: post #196

What's wrong with us workers? Do you think the Apple executes have some secret message board where they ask questions like: "Is it unethical for us to sell iPhones for $800 when they only cost $20 to produce?" Capitalism is what it is, you play the game and shouldn't feel bad the (few!) times you win.

> Is it unethical for us to sell iPhones for $800 when they only cost $20 to produce?

If you're going to make an argument, why make a strawman?

My $1000 iPhone 7+ costs roughly $220 in materials. [1]

Apple's stated gross margins are 39%, and last quarter was a net profit of $17.9b on revenue of $78.4b [2], so that's 22% net profit. So overheads are somewhere around 17%.

To sum up where your $1000 on an iPhone goes:

  $220 components
  $390 other cost of goods: assembly, transport, packaging, blah, blah.
  $170 overheads
  $220 net profit
I'm more than happy to allow Apple $220 of profit on my iPhone. You may not, but let's debate that rather than a ridiculous claim that they're only $20 to produce.

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/20/649-iphone-7-estimated-to-cos... [2] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/31/q1-2017-results/

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#282

Post by peterburkimsher »

Is it unethical to keep a chair warm when my boss didn't give me new tasks to do?

For other areas of life (immigration), I need to get more years of continuous relevant work experience.

I come to an office every day, but my boss just doesn't have enough to keep me busy. My job title is "Project Engineer", which is vague enough to cover everything from DLL debugging to Node.JS programming to network monitoring to evaluating Advanced Planning systems. The latest task is to do some online course in machine learning, even though he didn't specify how the company will need it.

On bad days, I feel useless. But I reconcile the situation to myself by saying it's basically a "basic income" (the salary is not high; the minimum that people on my visa can have). I could think about changing after I have the years of work experience, but years just come with patience, not with productivity. I feel like my situation isn't "fair" because my friends are so much more stressed, but I need the years, not the results.

I also do a lot of side projects and post them online (e.g. learning Chinese - http://pingtype.github.io ), but my contract and visa specifically state that I can't have any other paid work. So all my projects must be free and open source.

If the author of the automation scripts wants to comfort his conscience, I suggest reading more about Basic Income theories.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#283

Post by peterburkimsher »

An appropriate comic from Poorly Drawn Lines:

http://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/welcome-to-work/

"Welcome to work. You'll spend your time here in two ways: overwhelmed and underwhelmed."

"Is there a third option?"

"Well, there's 'whelmed'. But I'm not sure if that's a word. So no."

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#284

Post by sverige »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #245
rljy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is not. You are allowed to pay by the peice, but you must pay at least minimum wage, you must pay sick leave, you must pay health insurance, you cannot fire for unjust cause (at least in Europe). That marks the definitive end to piece work as we knew it in Adam Smith's time when a stranger could show up at the factory door and be paid by the piece for one day or one afternoon, something which really was even co…

Setting a floor for piecework pay isn't the same as making it illegal. There's still payment according to widgets produced in all other cases. I agree that it does change some of the incentives for piecework, and perhaps you could argue that it's effectively prohibited, but piecework per se is nevertheless perfectly legal.

It is the basis for pay for most over-the-road truck drivers, who are paid by miles driven.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#285

Post by EdgarVerona »

Reading this, it felt pretty strongly like the person wasn't asking for genuine input as much as they were asking for permission from strangers. He defends the "don't tell" side of the options with a fervor that strongly suggests he's already made up his mind but needs peer approval to assuage his guilt.

I can't blame the guy. I've lived in areas where tech jobs are thin on the ground. But what I would do if I were him would be to start looking, and try to find a new job as quickly as possible so as to minimize the amount of time in this state. I can understand a fear that it may take a while to find a new job - and if he has that fear, he should start looking now instead of assuming that coasting like this is okay.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#286

Post by Natsu »

nwatson wrote: post #269
Natsu wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds about the same as normal factory work if we're being honest, which is still around. Yes, it really does bore you to death. No, it doesn't make you incapable of thinking. Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. What it does do is to drain you of all energy such that it's hard to get away from it to something more decent.

> Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. There are many who through circumstance or poor (or good?) choices ended up with the crap job but nevertheless pay attention to the larger world around them learn as much as they can. Maybe they studied history and are working in an Amazon warehouse. There is a lot of "squandered" intelligence…

I only meant to speak about the people I know personally. You are correct that everyone was there due to having no other options. It takes a lot of energy to make other options for yourself and factory work is not conductive to that at all.

Of the people I knew who frequently read or studied things in their spare time, one quit to become a pharmacist and the other now works in IT last I heard. And then there's me.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#287

Post by Trundle »

webnrrd2k wrote: post #126
kazen44 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for a while it seems to me that this is directly related to the fact that many parts of management theory have been developed as part of a manufacturing industry instead of a service/"tinkering" industry. With manufacturing, more hours directly correlates to more units produced and thus more value created. This is not the case anymore tha…

I think thst there is also a fundamental imbalance between people's general expectation of what's fair for a company to do, and what's fair for a person to do. After all, if a company had discovered a way to make, say, an expensive medication for almost nothing, would the company be expected to disclose their secret? Would a company be expected to announce to the world: "we can make this for almost nothing now, so we…

>Would a company be expected to announce to the world: "we can make this for almost nothing now, so were dropping the price to almost nothing!".

There are many people all over reddit at least that think that yes, yes they should.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#288

Post by maruhan2 »

dkersten wrote: post #253
rubidium wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say I thing about your browsing, but I would give you more work :)

Why should the person who more efficiently does their work be punished with more work when others can do less and still get paid the same?

Ideally, a manager will see that you worked more efficiently and give you a raise in return for giving you more work.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#289

Post by mmmpop »

zzalpha wrote: post #271
Natsu wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds about the same as normal factory work if we're being honest, which is still around. Yes, it really does bore you to death. No, it doesn't make you incapable of thinking. Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. What it does do is to drain you of all energy such that it's hard to get away from it to something more decent.

Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. Well that's definitely not elitist...

You're right, it's most certainly not! I wish someone could tell us how it is "elitist" to point out that some people are "smart" and some aren't. Not every person can be nor desires to be an engineer/surgeon/attorney and that's totally okay, the world needs big dumb jocks too.

Re: Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job?

#290

Post by dogecoinbase »

Natsu wrote: post #244
jgamman wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everyone knows that quote but I doubt you've read WofN - about 1 paragraph later he says that this will drive the worker insane and may literally lead to the collapse of society: "The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out exped…

That sounds about the same as normal factory work if we're being honest, which is still around. Yes, it really does bore you to death. No, it doesn't make you incapable of thinking. Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. What it does do is to drain you of all energy such that it's hard to get away from it to something more decent.

Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. What it does do is to drain you of all energy such that it's hard to get away from it to something more decent.

You have the key point, but backwards -- poverty and lack of opportunity are what causes the drain of energy, and taking the mindless job is the consequence.

Then, the mindless, exhausting job keeps you drained so future opportunities are unavailable to you. Then your impoverished children, bereft of hope, walk the same path, ad infinitum.

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