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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?

#511

Post by dredmorbius »

md_ wrote: post #496
dredmorbius wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smith specifically cites a reference, Remuzzini, in the passage. I've the hardcopy version by Edwin Cannan with his notes, that doesn't specifically indicate additional sources, and I'm not aware of any further scholarship on this. If you read Smith, he generally writes from a mix of scholarship and experience, though generally doesn't cite his sources with the rigour you'd expect from a current academic text. That's…

Thanks. I'm always surprised at the thoroughness of some replies here. BTW: Ello? I didn't realize that was still around. :)

Ello ... is doing poorly of late.

Interesting idea, but the long-standing bugs aren't being fixed, and recent directions are killing engagement.

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

#512

Post by rkda »

codyb wrote: post #347
rkda wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that. It's that not everyone who desires to be an engineer/surgeon/attorney has the resources or opportunities to do so. Some people are barely surviving as it is. Intellectual pursuits are a luxury for them.

Are they? In a world with libraries and vast amounts of knowledge in the palms of our hands? My Pops never graduated college but he's one of my biggest inspirations because he goes out and builds things (well, stays in and builds thing I suppose). He started by building fiberglass boats and eventually ended up having a career as a graphic designer (a much less menial job than factory worker to be sure), but when he l…

Do you live in the US? Because where I'm from, our public libraries suck and not everyone has access to the internet. I agree that people with access to public libraries and the internet have no excuse. What I'm telling you is that a large number of people in other places of the world don't have access to even that.

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

#513

Post by atemerev »

rljy wrote: post #474
atemerev wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income is financially impossible. Even retirement schemes are barely sustainable and constantly under pressure these days.

Financial impossibility is a strange thing. Is if physically impossible for just %20 of the population to work? We have so much amazing technology, we should be able to attain that. Why let money get in the way of what is physically possible? Its just paper. Its not even paper. Its an integer.

All right, why not give a billion dollars each tomorrow? It's just integers (OK, decimals) in bank accounts. Let's do that and solve our economic problems for good! /s

Monetary supply/demand is a tiny bit more complicated than that.

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

#514

Post by mmcnl »

agumonkey wrote: post #393
gerbilly wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had surprising lessons in a stupid job where I cut half of the effort through scripting. Albeit it wasn't the boss, but the colleagues. Everybody complained about how dull the tasks were. I offered the script to people nearby, which they refused. Ok. A month later I ended giving this up to a lot of people, suddenly the first one who refused jumped on me angry asking why I didn't give it to him/her too. People are .…

People are people indeed, which means people are not companies. The best interest of the person you work for might not (will almost never) be the same as the best interest of the company. Superiors want people who are working hard for them, because it makes them feel more important than half the people working 2 hours a week for them (even though the output is the same).

You're working for a person, not a company. If you forget this, then you might end up surprised.

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

#515

Post by mmcnl »

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.…

This is a signal of short-sighted incompetent management.

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

#516

Post by mmcnl »

mst wrote: post #63
simonh wrote: post #28

If he was a company providing a service this wouldn't even be a subject for discussion. It would be a non-issue. Also he's been pretty much instructed by the company not to rock the boat. It seems pretty clear they really don't care as long as the work gets done. I've known plenty of sysadmins that have significantly automated most of their work and mainly just monitor and maintain, good for them. Nobody ever critici…

> He should stop introducing errors though. Then the QA team would stop paying attention and if he ever introduced a bug it would be much much worse. Seems to me that in this case it serves a "test your backups" function.

This might be true, but it is not the best solution. Seperation of duties should be in place here.

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

#518

Post by triangleman »

aykutcan wrote: post #431
kyberias wrote: post #427

Wow. How can anyone be confused about this? This is clear cut. The stackexchange answers are correct and this HN thread is filled with really unethical, almost childish advice. What the guy is doing is basically fraud. The employer expects him to do efficient work. If he can automate it, that automation is owned by his employer.

He is doing efficient work. It is so much efficient than working by hand. Why automation will be owned by his employer ? Just why ?

They hired a "computer guy" for "data entry". The computer guy develops a system to facilitate data entry, which is exactly what he was hired to do.

It's not like he developed a cool iPhone game in his spare time, unrelated to his job. The work was directly job related.

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

#519

Post by rhino369 »

kungito wrote: post #106
emodendroket wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

The default rule for what happens w/o a contract is different for each state. But many states say that a work, created during employment, that is within the scope of your work and on company time is company property. Note, this doesn't apply to contractors.

I can't think of a state where a program you create to automate your job, that you wrote on company time, wouldn't be the companies property. Of course an employment contract can easily modify the general rule.

For contractors the rule is the opposite. They retain IP by default.

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

#520

Post by JadeNB »

Falling3 wrote: post #34
pmoriarty wrote: post #29

What is considered ethical or unethical always depends on who you ask. Ask most slave owners a few hundred years ago if it was ethical to whip slaves (or even own slaves, for that matter) and you'll get one answer, but quite a different answer from the slaves themselves. You'll get different answers to this question whether you ask it of employers or employees, capitalists, socialists, or communists, people who feel…

You're right that ethical axioms are subjective. But most arguments tend to center around the application of those axioms . I often find that people are in complete agreement in their axioms, but come to different conclusions in real world scenarios - due to flaws in their reasoning or refusal to consistently apply their own reasoning for personal reasons (I know this is wrong, but I really want to do it).

> I often find that people are in complete agreement in their axioms, but come to different conclusions in real world scenarios - due to flaws in their reasoning or refusal to consistently apply their own reasoning for personal reasons

… or, less cynically, because there's no reason to expect informal, philosophical reasoning from not-necessarily-consistent axioms always to lead to the same result?

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