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I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

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Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#61

Post by wonderwonder »

neom wrote: post #37
wonderwonder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really saying that the poster should tell them about his script, which they will then take and use, removing the need for OP? So OP who as far as anyone at the firm is concerned is doing a terrific job should sacrifice his position and take a financial hit so that the COO/GM can get a nice bonus? That makes no sense at all.

Actually he should have discussed it with others in the company as he went, given that chance has passed... Sans your hyperbole, that is indeed what I am saying. OP most certainly should discuss how he is executing his job with his employer, if they say it's fine, cool... but that should be their choice, business does not happen in a vacuum, it's a team of people working together. He's taking it upon himself to decid…

how is he taking it on himself to decide what work needs to be done? He was hired to perform a set of tasks, and has written a script to accomplish them. You could argue he has taken it upon himself to decide how the required work is done and then one could say "so what?". If the business is happy with his output then everyone is a winner. To think its an employees job to suicide their employment is not the actions a rational actor takes. If that is the case, OP would be incentivized to destroy his script and return the prior method of manually processing files which he specified was not keeping pace with business needs. Society has reached a strange place when bottom of the food chain employees are expected to suffer financial hardship for the good of the company execs.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#62

Post by 99_00 »

brodouevencode wrote: post #35

Great engineers try to automate their way out of a job. It would seem like their employer would reward them for using a little ingenuity. Why wouldn't he just come clean about it?

A small lawfirm that doesn't have its own IT department doesn't have engineering opportunities

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#63

Post by jpindar »

brodouevencode wrote: post #35

Great engineers try to automate their way out of a job. It would seem like their employer would reward them for using a little ingenuity. Why wouldn't he just come clean about it?

He wouldn't get any imaginary internet points for that.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#64

Post by neom »

wonderwonder wrote: post #41
neom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. That is in fact not how the law works at all.

"By staying silent he is denying the business the ability to optimize it's cogs, and therefore effectively stealing for the business." That's not how the law works either. If employee A, B and C all have different processes to do the same task and employee A is faster than the other 2, employee A is not stealing and neither are the other 2.

I don't know what jurisdiction you're referring to, here in Canada what he did would likely be illegal, and the other instance would not. I don't know of a locality where what typon said is illegal. It's not difficult to get creative when pursuing theft of company time, and here I doubt you'd even need to get that creative. I'm an EIR at a law firm so I will ask and report back.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#65

Post by bena »

leetcrew wrote: post #34
lolc wrote: post #14

It looks like this is a case where everybody is happy. A process that was plagued by manual errors now runs smoothly. And there is an admin around to jump in should it break. While the firm might be indignant if they found out, they may actually already know and just accept it. They're unlikely to change it if it runs well. On the other hand, I don't think I could work like that. I always look for ways to improve lif…

> While the firm might be indignant if they found out, they may actually already know and just accept it. They're unlikely to change it if it runs well. if they knew, they might be tempted to fire the person and keep the script. OP talks a big game about how it's running on their own hardware, but the company has a legal claim if it was developed during the workday. not smart to play legal games with a law firm.

It was literally developed for them. He even explains that he has no intention of selling it because it is pretty much custom to the one place.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#67

Post by neom »

wonderwonder wrote: post #61
neom wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually he should have discussed it with others in the company as he went, given that chance has passed... Sans your hyperbole, that is indeed what I am saying. OP most certainly should discuss how he is executing his job with his employer, if they say it's fine, cool... but that should be their choice, business does not happen in a vacuum, it's a team of people working together. He's taking it upon himself to decid…

how is he taking it on himself to decide what work needs to be done? He was hired to perform a set of tasks, and has written a script to accomplish them. You could argue he has taken it upon himself to decide how the required work is done and then one could say "so what?". If the business is happy with his output then everyone is a winner. To think its an employees job to suicide their employment is not the actions a…

Employees are resources to the business, as the work changes, the resources change, it's not his job to decide how he should be resourced in the business. It's literally why HR is called HR.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#68

Post by vlunkr »

laurent123456 wrote: post #52
nlh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I had this exact same thought. The red flags for me were their use of “clock in” and “shift”. Those are not concepts generally in play for IT staff at law firms.

$90K just to move some files from one folder to another seems high too. Either the job involves more than what's he saying, or it's simply fake.

Yeah this is the big red flag for me. I believe that a law firm without a ton of technical knowledge would hire someone to do this work manually, but they'd get an intern or something, this is not skilled work.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#69

Post by gruez »

fartcannon wrote: post #16

As someone who definitely agrees that people shouldn't have to work in poor conditions, I still cant help but feel that the anti-work stuff on reddit seems coordinated. Does anyone else get that feeling?

>I still cant help but feel that the anti-work stuff on reddit seems coordinated.

What sounds off to you? It seems pretty straightforward how the "fake posts" can arise out of uncoordinated behavior. Antiwork discusses various grievances that reddit's demographics has (capitalism, under/un-employment, poor working conditions). Readers are more likely to engage with topics that they're passionate about, so the subreddit becomes a great place to farm karma/upvotes, and content creators happily oblige.

Re: I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone

#70

Post by dfxm12 »

binarytox1n wrote: post #7

Many subreddits are simply themed containers of creative writing. With all the media attention the AntiWork subreddit has gotten lately that brings more karma farmers and therefore more fiction. It's an entertaining read, but not likely true.

There's a kernel of truth in all good fiction. Whether this is 100% true, or just exaggerated, it's still worth knowing & evangelizing that there are a lot of tools out there that can automate a lot of your job. Between shell scripting and LCAP tools, a ton of what a lot of people do, not just IT professionals, can be automated.

I know a bunch of people who could be in a similar situation as the OP if they just took a couple days to learn how to use power apps, power automate and gasp powershell.

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