Live data from Hacker News

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

old.reddit.com

371–380 of 510 posts

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

#371

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…

Heh, you're a great person, and a terrible consultant

https://despair.com/products/consulting

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

#372

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 posi…

re: the performance review: don't know about your work place, but the first quarterly review I got at [insert name of large known company], my manger sat me down and explained she is budgeted a certain amount of bonus points for her 5 team members, and required to "grade on a curve". Hence, 1 team member will be "above average", 3 will be "average", and one "below average" every quarter. And for fairness, she rotates…

I've been on the other side of it.

I hated it but I had to pick the X best in the team. You should have reported your manager to HR.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends how shady the firm is :-) Also for probably any litigation that is IT related you could probably get away with a lot more

Firms navigate this by making the employees fill out their own billing entries. If OP is filling out fraudulent billing entries then that would explain why nobody is checking up on him. If he's billed out, his real work output is billed-hours.

No reason (to need, in this situation) for the automated program to run faster than a human. The right hours billed to a human instead of the human's computer is.. not quite so fraudulent?

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

#374
post #148

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 know sysadmins that did very similar things to what the author is doing and spent their time in the office playing videogames.

It's not that unreal.

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

#375
post #305

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…

If you take a look now, the sub is in a pretty poor state. It's full of almost certainly fake stories and what seem to be actual children. A lot of the demands / proposals posted are extremely counterproductive or not useful. And I assume the actual elite thrive on the fact that the general public don't actually know what they need and instead waste time calling for nonsensical change.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers who just give everyone the highest rating are generally the reason that these forced curve policies are created.

That doesn't mean the managers are wrong.

That is definitely (and self-evidently) true! Of all managers who rate everyone on their team as having achieved the highest performance standard, what fraction of those cases do you think are subjectively “correct”? In my experience, it’s way, way, way under half.

Further, it’s rare for the managers giving the 100% top performance evaluation to individuals to be leading groups with high overall accomplishment/delivery. (Occam’s Razor suggests that it’s evidence of poor leadership to be squandering the ability and contributions of all these high-performers. An analog might be an MLB Manager with All-Star players at every position and turning in a 0.500 season; they should expect to be fired.)

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

#377
post #26

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.

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.

I had a job that tried to implement a time logging system. Most of IT just didn't. Eventually they explained to us that the payroll guy uses that to cut the checks, and it's a huge pain in their ass if we don't use the system. They compromised by asking us to log in and out at least once each pay period. That was fine, and we did.

But they really did try to get us to go whole hog on it at first.

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

#378

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?

People will list out lots of practical reasons but I suspect the main one is that the number on your profile going up makes people feel good. As well as the temporary fame every time they make a popular post. Same reason people post dangerous stunts on tiktok despite gaining nothing monetary from it.

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not paid just to transfer files. He is paid to be responsible for the files being transferred. It's not quite the same thing.

This. He’s being paid to be responsible for the system. If he can do that successfully a few minutes a day. Cool. If his employer still sees value. It’s all good.

It's really on the business to have some kind of continual improvement process that looks at everyone's workflow and works out where the time/resource wastage is. If the company wanted to save money on these things they have get someone to identify that a lot of time is spent on "manual" work which could be streamlined.

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

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not paid just to transfer files. He is paid to be responsible for the files being transferred. It's not quite the same thing.

Are you sure the boss would agree, if he would fully know and understand the situation?

Because humans are irrational. It's the butts in seats mentality vs results. The business should be bringing in experts to regularly work out what parts of their process are slow and to streamline them. There is no incentive for an individual not in this role to make their lives harder.
Post reply on HN