391–400 of 543 posts
I don't expect them to pop a champagne, but they could say something along the lines "this is interesting, what else could we automate?", but it's usually more like "cool, here's more work".
It doesn't deter me from telling them in the future. Maybe someone will appreciate it one day. Maybe not.
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Moonlighting is often against company's policy because there is a legal concept which applies to all employees called the “duty of loyalty.” Because legally employees are “agents” of their employer, they are required to act in the best interests of the employer during their employment
It might be against some contract he's signed, which would make it illegal. Aside from that I'm not sure I buy this "duty of loyalty" idea. What social purpose does it serve? Sounds like something that's common because at some point it became normal to be able to get people to agree to it. After all, most people in history could not work remotely. There's also plenty of other professions where you can work for severa…
When I was a student I took a work-from-home job manually generating HTML pages for an online furnishing shop. They somehow had a successful web presence but all sales were done by phone (early 2000s). They wanted to pay me by the hour, but I negotiated paying by the page instead. Of course, I automated the job. And surprisingly, at least to naïve me, they were annoyed that I automated it. Even though they got the sa…
You learned that people value effort over results. Here's a common situation from programming. A programmer, Steve, works long hours but writes sloppy code. Steve is often seen by management fixing critical issues in production, and 'saving the day'. Eventually Steve, leaves to work at a bigger company and is replaced by a new programmer, Dave, who is more methodical. Dave eventually cleans up the code and gets it to…
People are .. people.
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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...
The short version of which is the duty of loyalty requires that an employee refrain from behaving in a manner that would be contrary to his employer’s interests. That probably means what he's doing isn't okay but of course laws are different in every area and IANAL.
It's would be arguably different if he was a contractor I'm guessing.
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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.
The Graybeard engineer retired and a few weeks later the Big Machine broke down, which was essential to the company’s revenue. The Manager couldn’t get the machine to work again so the company called in Graybeard as an independent consultant.
Graybeard agrees. He walks into the factory, takes a look at the Big Machine, grabs a sledge hammer, and whacks the machine once whereupon the machine starts right up. Graybeard leaves and the company is making money again. The next day Manager receives a bill from Graybeard for $5,000. Manager is furious at the price and refuses to pay. Graybeard assures him that it’s a fair price. Manager retorts that if it’s a fair price Graybeard won’t mind itemizing the bill. Graybeard agrees that this is a fair request and complies.
The new, itemized bill reads….
Hammer: $5
Knowing where to hit the machine with hammer: $4995
You should tell the company. There's probably a $20 gift card in it for you. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3845107/argos-worker-who-came-...
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The product being bought and sold is the same, by objective measure; and that's what counts in a business transaction, rather than a personal relationship.
So if -for example- you knew the details of fabrication of your car: you consider that you'd still buy a car with a chassis that was deliberately weakened by an employee, instead of just buying a car with an -unknowingly- faulty chassis? Why would you accept something that, if not tampered, would be better than the alternative? When there's bad intentions or tampering, you'll have a result that is broken to some degr…
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No, the company didn't make the right decision. They hired a programmer to do the work of a data-entry person. If they hired that programmer to do the work of a programmer, the automation software would be work-for-hire, and would belong to the company. Since they hired the programmer to do different work, in the absence of an explicit agreement saying otherwise, the automation software belongs to OP, to use (and lic…
Most of the time, employers are savvy enough to write employment contracts which cover this eventuality and lay broad claim to all work products and require the employee to do any sort of work. My guess is that most programmers are employed under contracts that give them no additional recourse if, for an extreme example, their employer decided that they should now spend their time on janitorial duties.