4 ms·

Somewhat related to your predicament, a good friend of mine was working data entry in Verizon in the early 2010s, and automated his entire job with VBA. Never

Somewhat related to your predicament, a good friend of mine was working data entry in Verizon in the early 2010s, and automated his entire job with VBA. Never told anyone on his team, least of all his manager. Spent a year or so doing no more than 10 minutes work per day. Learned Python and after a year revealed all and left for a better job. Apparently there was chaos afterwards. So, either tell your direct manager and be up front about it, or say nothing and use the free time to do something useful.

jeroenhd 4y ago
I don't understand why you would reveal that you automated your job after all that time. If the contract states that you get paid in hours rather than tasks per time period, you might end up losing a lawsuit. Just leave and say nothing. Don't give your code to someone else, don't give it to the company, just go. Even without the potential lawsuit, on the odd chance that your future employer ever calls up your previous employer to verify your credentials, the company won't describe you as a lying hack.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  I'd agree with you there, keeping quiet would be a better policy. However, as it was told to me my friend revealed the automation scripting as a very deliberate FU right at the end of his employment. Not so much burning bridges, but almost taking deliberate steps to douse them in kerosene beforehand. Seeing he ended up as a principal developer in a reinsurance company, I doubt it did much long term reputational damage.
- kodah 4y ago
  > on the odd chance that your future employer ever calls up your previous employer to verify your credentials, the company won't describe you as a lying hack. This is a common perception but I don't think actually happens that much. A company be sued for what they say about you, so most will just provide your start and end date, employee type, and the type of termination.
  - Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
    That's my understanding of it anyway, they give start and end dates usually and no more. Otherwise they open themselves up to all sorts of legal unpleasantness.
- duxup 4y ago
  I’m inclined to agree. If I’m a data entry drone and the company can’t / doesn’t want to automate the job then they made their bed. I also suspect the person who did this is doing a fair amount of spot checking to avoid being caught, more than the company might do.
- resoluteteeth 4y ago
  > I don't understand why you would reveal that you automated your job after all that time. If the contract states that you get paid in hours rather than tasks per time period, you might end up losing a lawsuit. > Just leave and say nothing. Don't give your code to someone else, don't give it to the company, just go. Even without the potential lawsuit, on the odd chance that your future employer ever calls up your previous employer to verify your credentials, the company won't describe you as a lying hack. This. It makes zero sense to tell them "I automated my job and was doing 10 minutes of work a day for a year." There is only risk and no benefit for you, you're pointlessly antagonizing people, and you might be harming your former coworkers or causing other problems by doing this. Maybe if you really like the company and it wouldn't cause problems there could be a situation where you could pass on the software in case it was useful, sure, but not in an extremely unprofessional way where you're smugly rubbing their face in the fact that they were paying you to sit around and not do anything for a year.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > Just leave and say nothing Or stay and say nothing? Why prematurely kill the golden goose?
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    Data entry jobs have a pretty hard cap on how much you can get paid. Besides no one wants to see a person's resume say "data entry" for 10 years. That would be shooting your own prospects in the foot.
    - lazide 4y ago
      If you have another gig and did something useful during that time, I can't imagine you'd be listing 'data entry' on the resume?
      - antisthenes 4y ago
        You won't be listing data entry, obviously, because of title inflation.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Frame it as I built a tool to add guardrails and perhaps it might be useful to the next developer or not.

jeroenhd 4y ago

I don't understand why you would reveal that you automated your job after all that time. If the contract states that you get paid in hours rather than tasks per time period, you might end up losing a lawsuit. Just leave and say nothing. Don't give your code to someone else, don't give it to the company, just go. Even without the potential lawsuit, on the odd chance that your future employer ever calls up your previous employer to verify your credentials, the company won't describe you as a lying hack.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
I'd agree with you there, keeping quiet would be a better policy. However, as it was told to me my friend revealed the automation scripting as a very deliberate FU right at the end of his employment. Not so much burning bridges, but almost taking deliberate steps to douse them in kerosene beforehand. Seeing he ended up as a principal developer in a reinsurance company, I doubt it did much long term reputational damage.
kodah 4y ago
> on the odd chance that your future employer ever calls up your previous employer to verify your credentials, the company won't describe you as a lying hack. This is a common perception but I don't think actually happens that much. A company be sued for what they say about you, so most will just provide your start and end date, employee type, and the type of termination.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  That's my understanding of it anyway, they give start and end dates usually and no more. Otherwise they open themselves up to all sorts of legal unpleasantness.
duxup 4y ago
I’m inclined to agree. If I’m a data entry drone and the company can’t / doesn’t want to automate the job then they made their bed. I also suspect the person who did this is doing a fair amount of spot checking to avoid being caught, more than the company might do.
resoluteteeth 4y ago
> I don't understand why you would reveal that you automated your job after all that time. If the contract states that you get paid in hours rather than tasks per time period, you might end up losing a lawsuit. > Just leave and say nothing. Don't give your code to someone else, don't give it to the company, just go. Even without the potential lawsuit, on the odd chance that your future employer ever calls up your previous employer to verify your credentials, the company won't describe you as a lying hack. This. It makes zero sense to tell them "I automated my job and was doing 10 minutes of work a day for a year." There is only risk and no benefit for you, you're pointlessly antagonizing people, and you might be harming your former coworkers or causing other problems by doing this. Maybe if you really like the company and it wouldn't cause problems there could be a situation where you could pass on the software in case it was useful, sure, but not in an extremely unprofessional way where you're smugly rubbing their face in the fact that they were paying you to sit around and not do anything for a year.
Nextgrid 4y ago
> Just leave and say nothing Or stay and say nothing? Why prematurely kill the golden goose?
- antisthenes 4y ago
  Data entry jobs have a pretty hard cap on how much you can get paid. Besides no one wants to see a person's resume say "data entry" for 10 years. That would be shooting your own prospects in the foot.
  - lazide 4y ago
    If you have another gig and did something useful during that time, I can't imagine you'd be listing 'data entry' on the resume?
    - antisthenes 4y ago
      You won't be listing data entry, obviously, because of title inflation.
ipaddr 4y ago
Frame it as I built a tool to add guardrails and perhaps it might be useful to the next developer or not.