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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

#281

Post by svachalek »

zffr wrote: post #191
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.

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…

20 years ago this was a super common situation. There were so many jobs that were easily automated and just hadn't received that treatment yet. I even had software engineers on some of my teams that were basically just template generators. Another table, write code with all the new columns and types.

Most companies have cleared out the lowest hanging fruit by now but I'm sure there are still a lot of jobs everywhere that can either be easily automated now, or would be easily automated except for one little obstacle the worker is doing everything possible to play up and preserve.

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

#282

Post by throwawayboise »

Assuming for the moment that this is a true story, IMO if the person is "clocking in" and getting paid by the hour, then this is dishonest and perhaps criminal.

If the person is paid a salary then it's fine. Salaried employees are paid to get a job done, not for their time.

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

#283

Post by tikhonj »

TriNetra wrote: post #45
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.

Back in 2013, as part of my consultancy services, I built a simple email support site for a client, whose most difficult part was just a background job (mailman) that would need to pull emails from different providers and send emails through them, as per replied by this client's support reps. The customer wanted a sort of custom service rather than using Zendesk or something, because he was providing a "outsourced su…

I mean, if I were running a small business and needed to run my own Mailman instance, I would pay those prices—or even substantially more!—in a heartbeat. And I'm technical enough that I could manage Mailman myself.

It sounds like you were clearly representing the service you were providing, so it's a bit of a different story.

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

#284

Post by Kluny »

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.

I couldn't say whether this story is true or not, but I do have to remind myself to steer clear of /r/antiwork and take it with a grain of salt. I'm a person who is happy when I'm working hard, and my current life goals include gaining skills in an industry where I can't really operate as a solo entrpreneur with a startup business. I need a job where I can learn, and I need to work hard, both for my goals and for my own happiness. Reading too much /r/antiwork makes me bitter and angry, which colors my relationships with my coworkers and employer. It's not good for me, even though I agree with most of their philosophical points (ie, pro-union, don't work for free, insist on your rights, etc).

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

#285

Post by jbigelow76 »

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.

Many subreddits are simply themed containers of creative writing.

One really annoying trend I am seeing in some mainstream news publishing online is repackaging social media clips and "reporting" on them as if NewsWeek breaking a story, Reddit and TikTok seem to be the current darlings of this form of phone it in journalism.

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

#286

Post by bittercynic »

brimble wrote: post #106
themodelplumber wrote: post #2

These are fun to read. I laughed at the one where the guy shared a photo of his bong and TV setup at home. One of his major innovations was creating appropriately-named folders for his work. And seriously, a lot of businesses don't know how to get _that_ organized. They are good at other stuff. Also noteworthy IMO are the jobs you don't need to automate--just bring yourself, do your normal thing with baseline effort…

As far as I can tell from listening to stories from friends who aren't in tech circles, sorta halfway knowing how to use a computer still makes you a wizard in most non-tech offices. And the newer generations are only barely better than the old ones, on average, so that's not putting an end to that state of things. I'm talking, like, you understand how external drives are represented, know how to cut & paste files &…

This rings very true for me, but I think the disconnect is often an inability to formalize any task. Seems like often the same people who can't get a computer to do what they want also can't write coherent instructions for another human to do what they want.

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

#287

Post by eckesicle »

My sister got a 9 month gig with the local municipality to copy-paste cells from a folder of 1000s of source excel sheets (with some transformations) into a master Excel sheet.

They paid her per entry and she was supposed to do 200 entries per day. By the end of the first week she'd automated the entire thing with a script that did just that.

So she ran that script every morning for nine months and spent most of the days biking, hiking, and swimming.

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

#288

Post by giantg2 »

noasaservice wrote: post #277
brodouevencode wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very cynical way of looking at things. And maybe rightly so given your experience. Every job I've ever had though there's never been a shortage of work - the few examples that I can recall of whenever one of my engineers frees up a significant amount of time I gave them harder things to do and a recommended a raise (Im a lead not a people manager) to go along with it.

Using "cynical" in looking at the job market when compared to potential abuses is a very boomerish thing. Us millenials and zoomers see how this society is played out. You work hard for a company - you get more work for same pay. They demand 2 weeks notice but have no issue in hauling your ass out with no severance on a term. Managers promise increases and you get 2% , or 1/3 of inflation. Companies' recruiters targe…

I'm not anti-work. I'm just anti-work for exploitive jerks. I have no problem working hard for myself (projects, chores, improvements, etc).

I think we both just realize that the rewards are simply not commensurate with effort in most cases. Executive and management pay goes up, yet they are just overhead, not production. So essentially they have to take advantage of the value produced by their worker for themselves. We recognize this and are unmotivated.

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

#289

Post by brimble »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #272
brimble wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People need work to feel fulfilled. I, too, worry about the idle rich and think we should do something to help them find work.

Vast majority of rich are not idle and live very active life. While they may not do work as you understand it, they do philanthropy, investment, etc. Few if any just stay home to watch TV - which is equivalent of automating work and not telling anyone.

Oh. So making them not dependent on losing 8 hours of their work per weekday to a boss, and giving them freedom to do what they like in that time, isn't making their lives worse? But if the same state is achieved by a poor person then...?

I would agree that also not needing to be available for a boss at all, even "just in case something goes wrong", is better, but that doesn't seem to be the argument. Rather, that attaining freedom from being told what to do much of your waking hours is morally or psychologically harmful. Which obviously becomes absurd when we apply it to rich people. Which is my point. Why's it fine for one group and something to worry about with another?

[EDIT] More directly, I'm wary any time I encounter "be careful with that freedom, poor people, it might be bad for you, and I'm not sure we can trust you to do the right thing with it! Rich people, carry on as you were, you're all fine and need no oversight or pointers, obviously." as an argument.

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

#290

Post by Kluny »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #285
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.

Many subreddits are simply themed containers of creative writing. One really annoying trend I am seeing in some mainstream news publishing online is repackaging social media clips and "reporting" on them as if NewsWeek breaking a story, Reddit and TikTok seem to be the current darlings of this form of phone it in journalism.

Yeah, it's trash and you're almost always better off just reading the original story (if you haven't already, since it was probably on the front page of a major subreddit).
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