131–140 of 543 posts
I'm surprised nobody suggested going back to doing it manually. If he can live with the moral compromise of what he's already done, he can eliminate any concern on a going-forward basis simply by deleting his script and doing things the old-fashioned way.
This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…
Adam Smith began his wealth of nations with a description of the division of labor and an essay on how this division leads to an increase in productivity. Specifically, he gives the example of a worker who's sole job it is to make pins, and who devises a way to make them by machine, while previously, each pin was hammered out by hand over a matter of minutes, the new machine makes them in seconds. This division of la…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I learned something that day, though I'm not sure what. You learned that people get sour with jealousy and annoyed when you can produce the same output / unit of work, at a fraction of the time that it takes them?
It goes further than that. I offered to show them how to automate the job (it's not like I had a promising career making HTML pages to sell furniture) and they didn't take it because presumably it bruised their pride. Even though it was strongly in their interests.
We all do that. For example, I'll hold onto a bad investment because selling it means admitting I screwed up. It's a tendency we all have to fight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I mean, generally, any tools you create on company time, with company resources, are assigned to the company, if you're an employee.
Only if the contract says so. And just because the contract says so doesn't mean it's morally correct, only that they managed to get you to sign it.
Companies, specially big consulting companies do something similar to their clients all the time when inflating projects and time, but, somehow, that just sound like business as usual.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a country with a terrible maternity and paternity leave policy, it's morally right to do whatever possible ... This seems like quite a slippery slope. Who gets to decide what counts as an acceptable maternity/paternity leave policy? And surely you don't mean it's morally right to do literally whatever possible. Suppose I show up at my boss' house at night with a gun and tell her than unless she keeps paying me f…
Stretching it a little bit here are you, now? The guy figured out how to automate his job when no one else before him did it. Let the small guy get the fruit once in awhile. What do you think they will do if he tells them? As he said, they will just take the software and get rid of him. They won't even ask themselves if it is morally right or wrong. I say keep the good work and spend the time with your son. I wish I…
Rather, I was commenting that the moral system in the grandparent comment of essentially "decide what values are important to you, and if your country's laws don't align well enough, feel free to break those laws" is quite an eyebrow-raiser.
Do you disagree?
I got rewarded for it with a promotion, and then I did the same thing and got another promotion, and another. I'm making more than twice was I was making before and now my job is telling other people how to automate their jobs away.
I keep scripting annoying tasks because I'm lazy and get rewarded for it with more annoying tasks and more money.
If he had just told his boss, and put what he did on his resume, I'm sure he'd be making more money today and have more interesting work than he would have if he hadn't lied.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I learned something that day, though I'm not sure what. You learned that people get sour with jealousy and annoyed when you can produce the same output / unit of work, at a fraction of the time that it takes them?
It goes further than that. I offered to show them how to automate the job (it's not like I had a promising career making HTML pages to sell furniture) and they didn't take it because presumably it bruised their pride. Even though it was strongly in their interests.
This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…
Adam Smith began his wealth of nations with a description of the division of labor and an essay on how this division leads to an increase in productivity. Specifically, he gives the example of a worker who's sole job it is to make pins, and who devises a way to make them by machine, while previously, each pin was hammered out by hand over a matter of minutes, the new machine makes them in seconds. This division of la…
Effectively AI doing QA work on data used to train other AIs, that would be amusing.
This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…
Adam Smith began his wealth of nations with a description of the division of labor and an essay on how this division leads to an increase in productivity. Specifically, he gives the example of a worker who's sole job it is to make pins, and who devises a way to make them by machine, while previously, each pin was hammered out by hand over a matter of minutes, the new machine makes them in seconds. This division of la…