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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

#201

Post by AlwaysRock »

mikewarot wrote: post #60

I didn't automate my job, I just did a good enough job that things stopped breaking, and I had less and less to every day. Eventually I'd just show up, make rounds, wait for things to break, make rounds again after lunch, wait until quitting time. I did try to improve the office productivity as a whole a few times by patching up the wonky database they used for accounting, but got shut down each time because of fear…

I had a similar job. Probably 1 hour of real work per day. It was awesome at first. Quickly I started to hate it. I spend all day dicking around so when I went home I had already done all of my hobbies. I imagine that if I had that job now instead of in my early 20's I would be able to fill that time with more interesting things and/or family time. But I left that job because I feared I was losing any skills I had and eventually the gig would be up and I'd be forced to scramble to find another job.

These types of gigs are often a blessing and a curse.

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

#202

Post by froaway4job »

Wow. I need to step my game up...

I've been working 4 jobs SWE roles remotely (3 full time, 1 part time) for several years now. I have to admit that the most challenging aspect of working multiple jobs is finding the right balance of working hard enough at each job just to get by. Automating a lot of the busy work sounds challenging for more hands on technical roles. I may need to take some pay cuts to find easier roles that I can automate.

If anyone has any tips on how to automate parts of their engineering work I'm all ears!

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

#203

Post by kodah »

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.

Eh, if the user is in the Midwest or South, I'd believe this story. I wouldn't believe it on the coasts though. One of my first jobs out of the military was being a sysadmin for a national company with next to zero IT infrastructure. I was interested in scaling their storage infrastructure due to some commitments I found in their contracts, but they had no cognizance of their systems capabilities. I was also NAASCO certified and qualified to work on their robots and trucks so my job was fairly expansive but I have no doubt they'd let something like this happen in a well-defined position.

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

#204

Post by wobblybubble »

lordnacho wrote: post #96

People are focusing too much on whether the story is actually true. It sounds plausible to me, but the real story here is that a heck of a lot of processes would benefit from having a programmer look at them. Programming is the new literacy. People who can do it are on a different plane to people who can't.

> Programming is the new literacy. People who can do it are on a different plane to people who can't.

This is what I believe sometimes.

Then I look at all the pitfalls of shell scripts and how the time investments on automation tasks just balloon… then not so much. :)

But if people have a different experience with that then I don’t doubt it.

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

#205

Post by rhino369 »

withinboredom wrote: post #194
rhino369 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the actual red flag. A mid-size firm simply couldn't function without IT. They could outsource it to a contractor, but, in that case, they'd never then hire someone for 90k to do one small IT task. If there is any true to this, he's probably on the books as an "Litigation Support Tech" and his job probably involves (or is supposed to involve) more than he's describing--like interfacing with vendors who do the…

You’d be surprised. I interviewed at a multi-million dollar firm and there were two IT people there for the whole firm.

Two is infinitely more than zero.

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

#207

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

neom wrote: post #27
arbitrage wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, won't someone think of the businesses?

Depends on if you care about other people I suppose. The West subscribes to capitalism as the modality to move society forward, so yes, till that changes, do think of the business imo.

> Depends on if you care about other people I suppose.

Oh no! Will someone PLEASE think about the multi-millionaire CEOs?

> The West subscribes to capitalism as the modality to move society forward

People might claim this, but it's a bullshit bad-faith claim.

Capitalism exists for one sole purpose: Create profit. Capitalists will happily destroy the planet if it makes their ticker symbol go up.

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

#208

Post by jacquesm »

AeroNotix wrote: post #198
zffr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally know someone who claims to have automated his work with Excel after learning how to code. He ended up telling his manager after feeling guilty. He got a promotion and eventually left the team to become a real software engineer. The rest of his team was eventually let go since they were not needed. This was at a large company you have definitely heard of. Its possible that my friend lied or exaggerated th…

When I worked at HP over a decade ago it was literally my job to walk into a department and find processes that were automatable, implement whatever program or automation was necessary and gtfo. One of the highlights for me when working there was automating a process which took three people thirty days to perform. I made a point to unnecessarily optimize the program to the point where it ran in a handful of milliseco…

A good way to make friends too.

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

#209

Post by wobblybubble »

padobson wrote: post #71
wombat-man wrote: post #12

This is like the dream. I feel like I would spend the time learning an instrument, or maybe do online learnings to maybe get another job I actually enjoyed doing. Can't even hate and hope things work out for that guy.

This is like the dream. If eight hours a day of free time is the only thing separating you from your dream, then there must be SOME way to adjust the math of your life to get that for at least a period long enough to learn the instrument or train for a new job or both. Reducing your monthly expenses by 1/12 means you could take a full month off and get a jump start on the training you want. You could also add overtim…

“The only thing”—only half of all weekdays if one follows the in-bed-for-eight hours recommendation. And you of course have to eat and groom yourself outside of those hours.

I’m not saying that you are wrong. But it seems weird to dismiss a whopping 40 hours a week as a seemingly small thing.

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

#210

Post by supperburg »

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.

What is the point of karma farming?
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