>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 thi

>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).