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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?

#301

Post by Qwertious »

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.

The point is that if you're receiving a minimum of the minimum wage, then by definition you're getting a wage. If you're getting a wage, then you're being paid per hour. If you're being paid per hour, then you're not being paid piecework and OP owes his/her employer another 38 hours per week.

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

#302

Post by jpindar »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #123
kungito wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the contract says so. And just because the contract says so doesn't mean it's morally correct, only that they managed to get you to sign it.

I'm pretty sure that's not true – in the UK at least, any work created during a course of employment belongs to the employer. There's nothing in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act that explicitly defines what 'course of employment' means but a court would certainly consider it valid were the works produced on company time using company equipment.

That's not true in the US either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire

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

#303

Post by mathattack »

From a legal standpoint the company owns the automation. You need to tell them. They pay for your time and the IP you create.

An enlightened company would entertain your offer to deliver the same value as a fee for service at a discount to them. (You would incorporate)

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

#304

Post by kbutler »

RobertoG wrote: post #134
kungito wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the contract says so. And just because the contract says so doesn't mean it's morally correct, only that they managed to get you to sign it.

I don't know what the correct morality is here, but I know that a basic principle of morality is to use the same yardstick for everybody. Companies, specially big consulting companies do something similar to their clients all the time when inflating projects and time, but, somehow, that just sound like business as usual.

Or are they just including indirect costs? The secretary doesn't work on the project, but she has to be paid. The consulting company also must allow for time/cost overruns. All these costs have to come out of the estimated costs, so including them is not only ethical, it is necessary to remain a viable business.

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

#306

Post by FascinatedBox »

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 wouldn't be so quick to call it squandered potential. Sure, that person may have studied history and now works in Amazon. But perhaps some of the lessons they learned from their deep study at some point have a parallel to their job. Perhaps it comes up as a topic of conversation at work and is used to build a lasting friendship. What if that person, after studying history, decided that they didn't want to pursue a job in it.

I have a degree in computer networking that I've never used. Most of my job experience is working retail. While working retail, I've found time to put into doing software development as a hobby.

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

#307

Post by sokoloff »

photojosh wrote: post #258
mmastrac wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piecework (and Mechnical Turk!) probably makes more sense in an environment with Basic Income. That gives the employee a chance to decide if the effort is worth the $/piece without compromising on their health and welfare.

Yep. Basic income means we can do away with minimum wage. Now let's see how much poorly-regarded jobs (like janitorial) end up paying when the free market really does decide.

My prediction is "not that different from today, perhaps a little less". The chief skills required are reliability and work ethic. People getting UBI of $600-800/mo aren't going to see janitorial work as "beneath them".

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

#308

Post by toast42 »

As a follow-up to this question, imagine a job where a significant portion of time is spent waiting on a computer (rendering animations, code compiling, etc).

Two contractors are hired, one with a modern laptop and the other with a 10 year old machine. The older machine takes at least twice as long to process the work.

Is it A) ethical to bill for time spent waiting for the machine to process and B) ethical to use the older machine? Assume the contractor using the older machine is using the best equipment currently available to them.

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

#309

Post by kbutler »

emodendroket wrote: post #92
dsego wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's his tool, why give it away for free?

Well, I mean, generally, any tools you create on company time, with company resources, are assigned to the company, if you're an employee.

If you are hired as a software engineer, yes, the systems you develop as part of your job belong to the company.

If someone hires you to cut the grass, and you create a machine that does it (the "Yardba"(tm)), there's no reason that machine would belong to the employer - creating it was not a part of your job.

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

#310

Post by 97s »

dvtv75 wrote: post #213
xenophonf wrote: post #31

Once, long ago, I did two weeks' worth of work for a multi-person team in about a day, thanks to a little sed/awk magic. The work would have gotten done a lot faster if I didn't have to deal with the completely shitty X-over-dialup remote access setup they forced me to use. The project manager was actually upset with me because now we couldn't bill the client for 80x5 hours worth of work or whatever it was. Needless…

Just a couple of weeks back, one of my colleagues worked an extra 25 or so hours, but wasn't paid for the full amount. He went and had a chat with his boss on Monday, demanding to be correctly paid. The office door was shut, and when I saw him an hour later, he told me he had decided to not worry about the money "for various reasons." He's still expected (required) to work all overtime, it's billable, he's just not g…

This is pretty common to me. I worked a job where I wasn't at work at night, but was responsible for doing network maintenance on servers late at night when the business wasn't functioning. My boss made sure I billed those hours, but I never got paid for them. At the time I was just happy to have a job learning so much, but man, how terrible of a boss.

This type of behavior is a warning sign that this business will eventually end up doing a lot of corrupt things in my opinion.

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