6 ms·

I've told this story a few times and I always get surprisingly diverse reactions to it, especially on Reddit. Back in the late 90s I worked at a place that sol

by 6nf 8y ago

I've told this story a few times and I always get surprisingly diverse reactions to it, especially on Reddit. Back in the late 90s I worked at a place that sold all kinds of automotive parts. Everything from nuts and spark plugs to turbochargers and large assemblies. The secret sauce of this company was a small team of people who worked through thick supplier (paper) catalogs and figured out which parts from different suppliers are in fact interchangable by comparing their specifications. This all went into the database for the sales team's use. Well one younger guy in this team worked out a way to largely automate his job using OCR and spreadsheets. Instead of taking 8 hours to work through his day's load, he would do it all in an hour or two. Then he'd slack off for the rest of the day. Soon the manager found out but the manager was not upset, instead the manager was disappointed. Why didn't this employee share this system with the others? Why did he think it was OK to slack off for 6 hours a day instead of doing 4 times as many catalogs? If this employee worked for me, I'd be putting him to work finding other things to automate! In the past I've had many comments from people saying 'oh he should have kept it a secret' or 'he is getting paid to do X and if he is more efficient then why cant he slack off' or even 'oh no this is a disaster now most of that team will be laid off'

romwell 8y ago
>Why didn't this employee share this system with the others? Because the consequences of him doing that are unclear. And since one potential (if not likely) consequence is management would simply retain 1/4 of staff doing this work and fire the rest, why would he share that? Was there a huge sign at his workplace outlining the consequences of automating anything? An explicit policy that would alleviate such (reasonable - read the article!) fears? I don't think so either. What was clear, presumably, is that as long as he processed X catalogs a day, he was getting his salary paid. That was what he was hired to do. And so that was exactly what he was doing. >Why did he think it was OK to slack off for 6 hours a day instead of doing 4 times as many catalogs? Because this is how work works. You pay someone to do something, and the expectations on the amount and kind of work - and the amount and kind of compensation - are discussed in advance. >If this employee worked for me, I'd be putting him to work finding other things to automate! Yes, and that's exactly the problem. What if there aren't any? What if there are, but he doesn't find them? What if he finds them, but doesn't know how to automate the task? He was hired to go trough books and compare specs, automating his employer's business was literally not his job. You see, your "reward" is not paying the employee 4X salary for being 4X efficient (you left that little part out!). Your reward is making the employee perform a more difficult job that they didn't sign up to do, presumably for the same salary (since you didn't mention paying them more). Do you still wonder why they kept their silence?
- 6nf 8y ago
  If someone with this attitude worked for me, I'd get rid of them ASAP. We don't want people sitting around saying 'thats not my job' or 'I'm not going to look for ways to do things in a better way' or 'I wasnt hired for that' Our company culture is the complete opposite of that. We want people to help each other. We want people to challenge how things are done. We want to change things all the time, experiment, see what works. I have NEVER hired someone and said 'heres exactly what you need to do for 8 hours, have at it'. Not even close. All businesses must move forward, lest they die in the dust. The old cushy 9-5 job where you just do the same thing over and over your whole career is dying out quickly.
  - romwell 8y ago
    >Our company culture is the complete opposite of that. We want people to help each other. We want people to challenge how things are done. We want to change things all the time, experiment, see what works. OK, so you are explicitly making this a part of the job description. Which, arguably, was not the case for that particular employee at that particular job. >If someone with this attitude worked for me, I'd get rid of them ASAP. When people are "got rid of ASAP" for their attitude and not due to their performance, that's more than reason enough to keep silent about, well, everything. Because who knows what kind of attitude the boss might have on that day, or seek from their employees. ---------------------------------- Everything below is skippable ---------------------------------- Now on the me-note: in my current job, I do my best to automate and document processes to save my and my co-workers' time. But, unlike in the case above, that's my job as a software engineer. And I know that when I make things better, I am rewarded - either with a thank-you, a bonus, or joy from improving my own work flow. I don't have to fear being reprimanded or fired for that. In my previous job, which was a Teaching Assistantship, I went over and beyond trying to improve things (I rewrote the lab assignments that everyone hated, and turned them into something useful and enjoyable) - and got hit with a plain, literal, "it's not your job" from the administration when trying to push these changes. Initiative was unwelcome there. The moral? I've seen both sides. If you are the manager, it's on you. You create the environment where people will be either eager to be improving things, or will be scared to try (and will keep mum if they do). >All businesses must move forward, lest they die in the dust. And so do the employees. >The old cushy 9-5 job where you just do the same thing over and over your whole career is dying out quickly. Indeed, and that's why people move on to other jobs. I think the puzzle will solve itself once you put yourself in the shoes of the person your story was about. >We don't want people sitting around saying ... 'I wasnt hired for that' But surely you hire people for something? I hope you don't expect your software engineers to, say, clean toilets - and vice versa. And if you do, I hope you pay your cleaning staff as much as you pay your engineers. Which, again, was not the case in the story you posted (the person doing the automation was neither expected to do it, nor was paid at the level that people whose job it is are).

by 6nf 8y ago

romwell 8y ago

>Why didn't this employee share this system with the others? Because the consequences of him doing that are unclear. And since one potential (if not likely) consequence is management would simply retain 1/4 of staff doing this work and fire the rest, why would he share that? Was there a huge sign at his workplace outlining the consequences of automating anything? An explicit policy that would alleviate such (reasonable - read the article!) fears? I don't think so either. What was clear, presumably, is that as long as he processed X catalogs a day, he was getting his salary paid. That was what he was hired to do. And so that was exactly what he was doing. >Why did he think it was OK to slack off for 6 hours a day instead of doing 4 times as many catalogs? Because this is how work works. You pay someone to do something, and the expectations on the amount and kind of work - and the amount and kind of compensation - are discussed in advance. >If this employee worked for me, I'd be putting him to work finding other things to automate! Yes, and that's exactly the problem. What if there aren't any? What if there are, but he doesn't find them? What if he finds them, but doesn't know how to automate the task? He was hired to go trough books and compare specs, automating his employer's business was literally not his job. You see, your "reward" is not paying the employee 4X salary for being 4X efficient (you left that little part out!). Your reward is making the employee perform a more difficult job that they didn't sign up to do, presumably for the same salary (since you didn't mention paying them more). Do you still wonder why they kept their silence?

6nf 8y ago
If someone with this attitude worked for me, I'd get rid of them ASAP. We don't want people sitting around saying 'thats not my job' or 'I'm not going to look for ways to do things in a better way' or 'I wasnt hired for that' Our company culture is the complete opposite of that. We want people to help each other. We want people to challenge how things are done. We want to change things all the time, experiment, see what works. I have NEVER hired someone and said 'heres exactly what you need to do for 8 hours, have at it'. Not even close. All businesses must move forward, lest they die in the dust. The old cushy 9-5 job where you just do the same thing over and over your whole career is dying out quickly.
- romwell 8y ago
  >Our company culture is the complete opposite of that. We want people to help each other. We want people to challenge how things are done. We want to change things all the time, experiment, see what works. OK, so you are explicitly making this a part of the job description. Which, arguably, was not the case for that particular employee at that particular job. >If someone with this attitude worked for me, I'd get rid of them ASAP. When people are "got rid of ASAP" for their attitude and not due to their performance, that's more than reason enough to keep silent about, well, everything. Because who knows what kind of attitude the boss might have on that day, or seek from their employees. ---------------------------------- Everything below is skippable ---------------------------------- Now on the me-note: in my current job, I do my best to automate and document processes to save my and my co-workers' time. But, unlike in the case above, that's my job as a software engineer. And I know that when I make things better, I am rewarded - either with a thank-you, a bonus, or joy from improving my own work flow. I don't have to fear being reprimanded or fired for that. In my previous job, which was a Teaching Assistantship, I went over and beyond trying to improve things (I rewrote the lab assignments that everyone hated, and turned them into something useful and enjoyable) - and got hit with a plain, literal, "it's not your job" from the administration when trying to push these changes. Initiative was unwelcome there. The moral? I've seen both sides. If you are the manager, it's on you. You create the environment where people will be either eager to be improving things, or will be scared to try (and will keep mum if they do). >All businesses must move forward, lest they die in the dust. And so do the employees. >The old cushy 9-5 job where you just do the same thing over and over your whole career is dying out quickly. Indeed, and that's why people move on to other jobs. I think the puzzle will solve itself once you put yourself in the shoes of the person your story was about. >We don't want people sitting around saying ... 'I wasnt hired for that' But surely you hire people for something? I hope you don't expect your software engineers to, say, clean toilets - and vice versa. And if you do, I hope you pay your cleaning staff as much as you pay your engineers. Which, again, was not the case in the story you posted (the person doing the automation was neither expected to do it, nor was paid at the level that people whose job it is are).