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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

#501

Post by GladHatter »

ravedave5 wrote: post #78
CountDrewku wrote: post #58

Ugh that subreddit is just a cesspool. Most of the stories are fake and it attracts the bottom feeders of society. People need work to feel fulfilled. I get that a corporate job may not meet that demand but this idea that you can just eschew any work and be mentally ok isn't true.

"People need work to feel fulfilled." I never thought I'd see Stockholm syndrome in the wild.

Can confirm this to be true. I was lucky enough to sell my tech startup a few years ago and become a multi-millionaire overnight. I did the usual newly-rich stuff like buy a sports car, take vacations, go to the beach a bunch, etc. It became boring, and I started sliding into bad behaviors such as drinking most days. I knew I had to change it up for my own health and sanity, so I started another company. This has given me something to do with my day and I'm much happier and healthier for it.

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

#502

Post by Shocka1 »

lrvick wrote: post #389

Early in my career I was the only engineer in a company with a dedicated office building full of people selling my work to Fortune 500 companies as that of a large team. Slept under my desk a lot as the 80 hour weeks made me choose between commuting and sleeping. It got worse when they hired someone to manage me that demanded I use Basecamp to log every action I take in my day . I wrote a script to fill it out with t…

I'm sitting here in my living room by myself laughing my butt off right now after pulling up that script. It kind of reminds me of one of the beginning exercises in the Book Head First java called PhraseOMatic:

https://resources.oreilly.com/examples/9780596009205/-/blob/...

Glad my non-tech wifey isn't home because she probably wouldn't be able to understand the convulsions I just experienced.

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

#503

Post by thewileyone »

geomark wrote: post #408
TravelTechGuy wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was a manager in a nearly identical situation. I had 5 engineers working for me at a remote office. The "curve" had not been used in past years. Now they insisted on applying it. Since 4 out of 5 had substantially exceeded their goals it would have been a lie to state that any of them had not met expectations. So I told my boss no, I'm not doing it. You can take whatever raise you planned for me and spread it acros…

I put together performance metrics that showed my team members were less than 5% deviation from each other, thus I couldn't grade on the curve. HR couldn't argue against that.

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

#504

Post by CountDrewku »

CRConrad wrote: post #486
CountDrewku wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Are you expecting others to take care of your needs while you do nothing? At what time in history has this ever been an option. You would be dead in a ditch with this attitude for most of our history. Maybe you need to go out into the woods and survive without help to force an attitude change. You have a skewed since of reality egged on by a society that's let you survive off of doing basically nothing and yet y…

Way to evade the question.

I'm not evading anything, your question doesn't make sense.

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

#505

Post by damirkotoric »

imtringued wrote: post #463
efsavage wrote: post #310

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…

Economists of the 20th century thought that productivity increases will reduce our working hours so much that we will barely spend any time working... What your boss should have done is lower your working hours but keep the pay the same.

Marx knew better.

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

#506

Post by johnnyanmac »

sam_goody wrote: post #383
efsavage wrote: post #310

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…

A Tale of Two Programmers should be required reading. Very relevant. https://knowstuffs.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/the-parable-of-t...

hmm, I'm not sure how to feel about this story (now, 35 years later). On paper, the lessons seems pretty clear: look productive and don't be afraid to be a bit fancy or cryptic to flaunt your talents. This is (IMO unfortunate) standard workplace stuff you'd learn in any field.

But nowadays... I'm not sure with the strict hierarchies on if Alan would actually be promoted. And ofc, in todays' unprecedented environment there's probably more Charles out there than people want to admit, who's still providing value to companies. Very interesting story, one where you can argue that there's no obvious moral to take away when considering this 80's tale in the 2020's.

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

#507

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

May not be true itself, but it's relatable and equates to other stories many others have on first or thirdhand accounts. That's why these stories become popular

It's more about triggering some old memories and getting people to talk than about even telling the whole truth

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

#508

Post by johnnyanmac »

buran77 wrote: post #244
jodrellblank wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exchange has been the long drawn out version of: > > Story > r/thathappened r/nothingeverhappens --- Where subreddit "ThatHappened" is a sarcastic one, a response to far-fetched and unlikely sounding stories, implying they are not true. Such response has been overdone enough that subreddit "NothingEverHappens" has become a reply implying that unlikely sounding things actually do happen. And all of it is a real-w…

The story is most likely made up and one of the last clarifications strongly hints at it: > It can't be this simple / this is fake because you aren't doing blah blah. You're right, it's not this simple. There are more steps involved in the script and it performs functions I haven't discussed. [...] The core of the script, transfer and hash, is accurate The person focuses on transfer and hash and keeps what looks like…

You overestimate how much managers and employers browse social media. Especially non-tech organization, they may not even know what Reddit is.

And no, this isn't a unique experience, given how many people here alone chimed in on similar automation strategies in non-tech situations. It can be weird if you're in tech and you're managing billion line codebases, but you'd be surprised how much a non-tech company would value a 100 line automation script you whip up in a week. The only risk in that relationship is your skills growing stale for if/when you need to change jobs

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

#509

Post by johnnyanmac »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #344
TriNetra wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> So, yes it's possible IMO, All of these highly-upvoted Reddit stories have the same few things in common: 1) They're vague enough to be possible. If it's too outlandish, people will call it out. 2) Verifiable or falsifiable specifics are conveniently omitted. This is easy to justify due to the anonymity. 3) They have an element of good guy versus bad guy, where the reader can empathize with the person telling the s…

>but you never know which stories are real and which are just someone's creative writing exercise.

my simple rebuttal to this is: what do I have to lose here if I find out that some reddit post is false, but still true enough to inspire more-likely-to-be-true stories? This isn't exactly misinformation that can cost lives.

Everything should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't find this post to be exceptional in that case.

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

#510

Post by CRConrad »

CountDrewku wrote: post #504
CRConrad wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to evade the question.

I'm not evading anything, your question doesn't make sense.

What "my" question?!? The question you declined to answer (while still spouting something in reply) wasn't mine.

Do try to keep up, please. Thank you.

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