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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

#301

Post by robotnikman »

dfxm12 wrote: post #70
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…

I try automating as much as I can at my current job. Probably out of laziness, but also because it leads to less room for error, and I feel much more mentally stimulating when trying to figure out how to automate something

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

#302

Post by genmud »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #299

I once got a contract, early in my career, migrating marketing landing pages to a new format in which the contents of the pages (anything inside of the tag) were moved into `marketing_page_name.tmpl` files in a directory. From there they'd be pulled into a shell, and all kinds of tracking and link magic could happen from there. A few things like anchors needed new template variables instead of hard-coded links. I rea…

Hey everyone, look at this guy! With his moral compass and stuff. Ain't never gonna get your own space rocket with that attitude.

All jokes aside, being trustworthy/ethical pays dividends over the course of peoples lifetime and will often times reward you in surprising ways.

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

#303

Post by hyprmynd »

vlunkr wrote: post #168
Aissen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that were true, no harm done… But imagine for a minute it isn't. What's the point of farming karma on a throwaway account ? Plus, we are social creatures, and sometimes we just need to offload our personal stories. Quite often there's a new fun thing that I wish I could write about or tell the world, but I don't because of real consequences to some people, or even myself. Recounting these stories is cathartic…

The harm done is that impressionable young people on /r/antiwork are given false hope in their dream of getting paid to do nothing so they can play more video games.

What a terrible dream, especially since most games are just jobs now.

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

#304

Post by withinboredom »

rhino369 wrote: post #279
withinboredom wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m still skeptical. I was hired at ridiculous rates once ($2k an hour) to validate DKIM signatures by a small time firm. 90k to be “on call” and validate things seems totally reasonable even from a small firm.

Courts don't actually require you to check hashes like the OP claims. They do remarkably little evidence authentication unless the opposing party contests the evidence. Digital evidence is by default produced to the other side by low quality TIFF files. If you want to accuse the other side of manipulation, you bring in an expert (who probably bills at nearly 1000 bucks an hour). I didn't take this as a sign of OP bei…

Nailed why I was hired. :)

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

#305

Post by alecbz »

vsareto wrote: post #174
mikkelam wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another take: Antiwork is a much needed uprising in america for low paid workers to finally stand together and stop dealing with an unfair system. Hopefully it trickles into the real world, before it is stopped

They're plainly against any work at all right now. If they shift towards better working conditions and pay, then great.

That subreddit's a mixed bag from what I remember.

I think there's a core of "true" antiworkers that are genuinely against the idea of working (categorically? within capitalism?) in some deep philosophical sense, but I think most of the sub are people that are okay with the _idea_ of work but are very unhappy with current working conditions.

I remember there being fights between them where the diehards would post stuff like "if you're a 'work reformist' this sub isn't for you" but the comments would be full of people telling them to stop gate keeping.

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

#306

Post by droptablemain »

alecbz wrote: post #305
vsareto wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're plainly against any work at all right now. If they shift towards better working conditions and pay, then great.

That subreddit's a mixed bag from what I remember. I think there's a core of "true" antiworkers that are genuinely against the idea of working (categorically? within capitalism?) in some deep philosophical sense, but I think most of the sub are people that are okay with the _idea_ of work but are very unhappy with current working conditions. I remember there being fights between them where the diehards would post stu…

That's the general gist as I recall. A lot of people who aren't structurally opposed to work but are opposed to their relationship with production as workers.

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

#307

Post by armchairhacker »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #299

I once got a contract, early in my career, migrating marketing landing pages to a new format in which the contents of the pages (anything inside of the tag) were moved into `marketing_page_name.tmpl` files in a directory. From there they'd be pulled into a shell, and all kinds of tracking and link magic could happen from there. A few things like anchors needed new template variables instead of hard-coded links. I rea…

I think the r/antiwork mindset of “no loyalty, no social connections, no extra effort, no two-weeks notice, work only work the wage” only applies when you’re working for a job that treats you like shit. If you have a half-decent employer you should provide some loyalty and extra effort when necessary or you’re a garbage employee. If you have a good career and you get a bad employer you can just leave.

The context with r/antiwork is that many of these people are in extremely toxic workplaces but need money because they’re very poor. It's a free-for-all, "take advantage of" or "be taken advantage of". And that most of the submissions are probably fake dystopia rage-bait.

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

#308

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jerf wrote: post #148
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.

Like TheDailyWTF stories, this is in the category of stories where even if the literal person who wrote that wrote fiction, something that is effectively the same story is true for someone. As developers who start writing big servers learn, scale matters. Crap you'd never think twice about when running a script on your workstation will bring your entire service down. There's 7-ish billion people in the world. Entire…

I also agree that it's not only happened, but it's probably not that rare. Before most businesses were automated to the point where this is possible, I had an engineering job where for at least two years, I may as well have not shown up. I spent all my time reading magazines and doing pet projects because there wasn't anything else for me to do but answer the phone if a customer had a question. I could have easily taken on another job in the mean time if remote work was a thing back then.

I knew at the time that I wasn't alone in this. I knew another engineer whose job consisted of basically showing up to work just in case an alarm went off. He spent his time writing a software package that he sold. Because, again, he really had nothing else to do all day, every day.

This was back in the mid-late 90's. I'd expect that it's even more prevalent now.

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

#309

Post by lovehashbrowns »

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…

Had something similar at a larger company I worked at! There was this team that was tasked with automating stuff from the other teams. And then they got split up and individuals were sprinkled around the company. I guess it was sorta like embedded devops in a way because they were supposed to spread that "automate stuff" mindset.

Thinking about it now, it makes sense. It's a bit of a waste to have one team that automates stuff, and everyone else just thinks of automation as "that's not our job!"

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

#310

Post by efsavage »

I once almost completely automated my job, and didn't hide it. The job was to load data files into the backend system. The problem was there there were almost as many formats (~80) as there were partners sending data (~120), not just in structure but in content (deltas, full replace, etc.). This job was burning people out every 6 months, and I was the hapless next victim who was just looking to break into a tech position.

I started scripting and automating parts of it, which eventually got pieced together to be completely hands off unless a new partner came on board or there was some new error. Since some of these steps used keyboard macros on VT100 terminals, I couldn't even use my computer while it was running, so I requested another, with the explicit intent that I could use it to surf the web while my main computer was doing it's thing. Data load lag times went from weeks, to days, to hours.

When it came time for performance review, I was told I had "completely redefined the position". I would therefore be assessed against the new definition, and was therefore deemed average, and got a 3% cost of living raise (pro-rated to 2% since I'd only been there 8 months) with no merit increase. A few weeks later, my manager was somehow surprised to the point of tears that I had a new job elsewhere.

A few months later, I got a call from my ex-manager, asking if I had any backups of the programs I wrote (this was long before the days of offsite source control). I said no, I had no need for them and that would probably be illegal. My replacement had somehow lost everything, and was now trying to keep up the old burnout way and they were weeks behind.

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