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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?

#331

Post by whoami24601 »

People here seem to be generally in favour of the OP, unlike the top-contributors on stackexchange. I too think that employers "naturally have the advantage of a power imbalance" (by keinos) and in my opinion they often take that advantage.

As OP I would think about two options in that situation - although I'm not sure if I can judge that well, since I don't have a child. In both cases though I would stop faking bugs. 1) Once OP stops pretending to work a full time job the employer might be smart enough to realize that said OP has more capacities and thus might provide him with more work. From my point of view it's not the employees fault that the employer does not know what's going on with the capacities. They don't give you enough work, why should you pretend to work? 2) OP could be pro-active and inform employer of his increasing capacities. Maybe they provide OP with new work.

It might be that the employer requests the automation-tool later on, but maybe it could be that the employer overlooks the free capacity aswell.

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

#332

Post by cuchoi »

scelerat wrote: post #322
undersuit wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how much does adding drama to my work routine help my compensation rate?

True story (radically abbreviated and redacted): One group, group A writes crap code. Another group, group B is meticulous and careful, constantly refactoring, using good testing and code review practices, taking care to design their software with forethought before ever committing code. Group A's code is in a constant state of breakage. Group B's code always just works. On the other hand, Group A is extremely vocal.…

I feel that the manager of Team B has some responsibility in this story

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

#334

Post by sowbug »

mathattack wrote: post #303

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)

Yeah, I don't see the employee's ethical issue. He was hired as a programmer. While at the company, using the company's computers, as a hired programmer, he wrote a program. The company owns the work product. Either he lies to his employer about what he's done (which would be almost certainly violating the employment agreement, because he's now using company property -- the program -- without permission and for his exclusive benefit), or he truthfully reports his work status (which is what the employment agreement surely calls for). End of story.

The company, on the other hand, does have an ethical issue. It'd be totally legal to do exactly what OP fears: say thank you for the automation and fire him. But would that be right?

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

#335

Post by vacri »

imh wrote: post #21

This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…

> On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay."

That's not my experience of HN, where people talk about how awesome they are and therefore how much more money they should be given. It's a minority viewpoint on HN that such a worker should be given more work but no extra remuneration.

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

#336

Post by conanbatt »

jgamman wrote: post #201
rljy wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adam Smith began his wealth of nations with a description of the division of labor and an essay on how this division leads to an increase in productivity. Specifically, he gives the example of a worker who's sole job it is to make pins, and who devises a way to make them by machine, while previously, each pin was hammered out by hand over a matter of minutes, the new machine makes them in seconds. This division of la…

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…

I remember this quote as part of justification of education, as in that most poor labor can dumb the mind so there is a case for government educate the people.

I also found his entire take on education fantastic, including accusing Cambridge (or oxford?) that "they have even dropped their pretenses of teaching".

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

#337

Post by vacri »

Spooky23 wrote: post #79

If you're a salaried employee assigned a task, you fulfill the task, and are available to respond to requests during business hours, there's no ethical issue here. If you're hourly and you are spending 3 hours a week and billing for 40, you're in bad ethical place in my mind.

If you're a salaried employee, you effectively have a standing contract where you're billing for 40.

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

#338

Post by anovikov »

Of course don't tell them. It is always stupid to leave the money on the table. You win nothing by telling in any case. They will fire you, they will own your app because after all you are a programmer and you coded it while on the job so it belongs to them anyway, and others in that company will hate you because you hacked through shit they had to do manually for years. And they will even think that you have scammed them after all that, anyway.

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

#339

Post by conanbatt »

imh wrote: post #21

This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…

For me, this is merely an issue of the employee not having the right tool to sell to his employer.

In principle, the company is willing to pay for that problem to be solved, and the employee has the solution for it. All cards on the table, both parts might be able to find an even better arrangement (for example, for the nature of the work it might be better tax-wise to turn this into royalties, or to sell the software for a large amount of cash upfront, or whatever).

The real tragedy here is that neither side can find a solution that is optimal for both, given the circumstances, and both get into this charade.

Not to mention that other parts of the businesses could use his expertise of automation, which means that both the employee and the employer have economic value to create and thus value to split amongst themselves.

Moral be damned, until you can buy things at the grocery store with it.

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

#340

Post by late2part »

Natsu wrote: post #294
late2part wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if we're being honest" Can't I assume you always are?

How many people do you know who can honestly tell you they've never ever told even a harmless lie?

Do you want an honest answer? Or would a harmless lie be acceptable?
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