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If I were a member of management, and I found out that he was doing this, I would be furious. Not because he gamed the system and received the bonuses, but beca

If I were a member of management, and I found out that he was doing this, I would be furious. Not because he gamed the system and received the bonuses, but because he didn't share his innovation with the rest of the team and improve everyones' efficiency. If he had done that, I would recognize his talent and initiative and promote him, allowing him to do more rewarding, higher-level work.

staunch 14y ago
He probably rightly senses that his boss wouldn't feel the way you hope you would. In fact I don't think most people would offer him a rational incentive at all. If he saves the company $1 million a year are you actually going to cut him a $200k+ bonus? I'd be very doubtful of anyone who says they would. Most people would give him $20k if they're especially generous and a pat on the head.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ohashi 14y ago
  Or he could simply be replacing himself with no reward. Oh, you've automated it? Thanks. Bye.
  - billybob 14y ago
    That's possible, but only if they're stupid. They'd be losing someone who can knows their business and could automate their next manual process. I'd suggest he say this: "hey boss, I think I can automate this process, increasing accuracy and productivity. Would you give me salary X if I can do it?" If the boss says "awesome, yes!", then he's got a better job. If the boss says no or is lukewarm, he could keep doing what he's doing, but actually study programming in the time he's goofing off and start a job search. Either way, he's on a path to getting to program, not having to hide it, and getting properly compensated. The more difficult question is: what if they lay off his coworkers because of his innovation? How should he feel then?
    - loup-vaillant 14y ago
      > The more difficult question is: what if they lay off his coworkers because of his innovation? How should he feel then? That's a question of how to deal with a broken system. Automation is by definition the destruction of manual work. Most of the time, of boring manual work. This is great. We should automate as much as we can. Oh, but it happens right now: hourly productivity, according to my source[1], more than tripled since the fifties. But, as you point out, sudden increase of productivity mechanically creates unemployment, if you don't have a massive consumption growth to absorb it —not a good idea in the long term, and doesn't happen anyway. There are several solutions out of this dilemma, which you can apply in parallel. The most powerful one is: work less (at the national level). Get nearly everyone to work 32 hours per week (typically 4 days a week) instead of the usual 40. (You can use incentives instead of force if you don't want to appear too communist) If Productivity grows again too much in the next decades, get down to 28, 24, or even less. There. I'm happy to be a programmer, whose main job is to destroy others'. Except the system is broken, and shows no sign of being fixed. Getting back to your difficult question, I don't know what I'd actually do. I'd probably tell no one, given the risks, both for me and my coworkers. I'd feel bad about reaping all the bonuses, though —but I would save them to buy a house or whatever. [1] http://www.roosevelt2012.fr/propdetails?propid=13 http://www.roosevelt2012.fr/propdetails?propid=13 (French, see 3rd chart. Watch out, it seems Wikipedia disagrees —maybe they're not measuring the same thing?)
    - ohashi 14y ago
      Let's do some math. He's saying he gets 90% of the bonus pool and expects many other people only get 100-200. So 5 others, 500-1000 for them, his take home would be 4500-9500 bonus. If there are 10 others, 1000-2000 for them, his take home would be 9500-19500 bonus. We're potentially talking 6 figure bonuses per year. Whose salary level do you think that would put him on? Do you think they will accept the data entry guy becoming as compensated? I doubt it would work politically and financially off some basic napkin math.
- 16s 14y ago
  You'd be surprised. I know several guys who pay regional sales manages 15% of net. No matter how much is sold, they get 15% every month. This encourages them to work hard and allows them to directly influence the income. And yes, if they sell 1 million bucks of goods and services, they get 15% of that.
  - staunch 14y ago
    There are quite a few places where people get a % of the money they earn/save. Data entry generally isn't one of them.
- stfu 14y ago
  This incentive question is really a good one. I personally always viewed these rates as ridiculously low so that people would be fools to think about how to eliminate their own jobs. It would be very interesting to analyze if indeed higher monetary incentives do rise the level of innovation within a company.
tbatterii 14y ago
presumably it is management who nurtured the environment that lead to team members competing against each other for a slice of the bonus. So though management might be furious, they should re-consider they should turn some of that fury on themselves(this never happens).
- underdown 14y ago
  they should be furious with themselves because one of their employees had a great idea that could lower their costs?
  - nikatwork 14y ago
    no, management should be furious with themselves because they have created an environment where innovation is not shared due to a dumb bonus structure, leading staff to optimize for personal instead of organizational outcomes.
    - tbatterii 14y ago
      exactly. in my experience, management hardly ever holds themselves accountable for their decisions. That might be an east coast thing though. :)
pasbesoin 14y ago
Unless you have nothing to offer him, which is often the case for many layers of management. In which case, he's screwed. There are reasons people do not take initiative in certain very bureaucratic positions and organizations. Sometimes, it is not rewarded -- in fact, it is punished. Any decision (e.g. whether to tell management) needs to be made with a good deal of contextual awareness. I hate to sound like a party-pooper, but speaking from experience... P.S. I'll add: He's already found the built-in reward. It sounds like it's a significant amount of bonus money, plus effectively a very light workload. What are they going to offer him that improves upon that? How high up in management would one need to go to find authority for such a decision/spend? How many layers of management do you think separate his data entry position from a manager with that authority? P.P.S. OTOH, if they are not entirely brain dead (and who knows?), metrics will eventually cause them to investigate. So, enjoy it while it lasts, and maybe consider whether he can turn eventual exposure to his advantage. (And if metrics don't attract attention, that's a pretty good sign he is indeed dealing with a brain dead organization.) /cynicism
seanalltogether 14y ago
I thought the same thing at first, but then I read how he's got this whole thing tied together. >We download PDF batches, not paper... >I wrote the script from scratch. It is a combination of reading the screen for data, a screen font reader, mouse automation/keyboard automation. >It's part C++ and part "Game Maker", I did it for prototyping but got lazy and never rewrote it. >Plus the script is pretty frustrating to setup in the morning, so they would get frustrated figuring it out. :P (requires a certain monitor arrangement at certain resolutions, windows in the right place, etc. Management would be furious if it was a simple script that you just hit "Go" and it does everything, but it sounds like it's finicky enough that management would be too confused to be angry.
- lukevdp 14y ago
  They all sound like problems that can be overcome, just that it's not worth it for him to overcome them right now. If it's worth it for his company to overcome them, he has his bargaining chip right there.
SCdF 14y ago
Absolutely. Maybe office politics works differently in the states (where I presume he's from), but it sounds like he's keeping it quite so he can screw around at work. If I made a script that deals with 98% of all of my work I could not imagine not sharing that with my bosses. To me (and I'm sure lots of people don't share this sentiment) it would feel morally wrong not to.
- Zak 14y ago
  I'd normally agree with you, but it might depend a bit on management's likely reaction. If he has reason to suspect it would be negative, he might be right to keep it secret. There do exist companies that would lay him off and keep his work. That would be monumentally stupid, but it happens.
- droithomme 14y ago
  He's ten times more productive than anyone else there and you feel he is screwing around too much and is morally in the wrong. Would you punish him?
SCdF 14y ago
Absolutely. Maybe office politics works differently in the states (where I presume he's from), but it sounds like he's keeping it quite so he can screw around at work. If I made a script that deals with 98% of all of my work I could not imagine not sharing that with my bosses. To me (and I'm sure lots of people don't share this sentiment) it would feel morally wrong not to.
ajross 14y ago
You realize that his "manager" is probably some kid just out of college, or another career grunt just clocking in the hours, right? This is data entry. There's no rewarding of initiative in that world: not at the bottom nor in the middle. You have to get to low level executives before you start seeing people with an interest in "changing" or "improving" the system.
starpilot 14y ago
> If I were a member of management, and I found out that he was doing this, I would be furious. And this is why you're not management. He hasn't shared it yet, why assume he would not ever? You could show some understanding and realize there are many reasons an employee might be uncomfortable showing a radically advantageous method immediately to management.
droithomme 14y ago
"I would be furious" Furious? Would you punish him then?
kamaal 14y ago
>>he didn't share his innovation with the rest of the team and improve everyones' efficiency Team work is everybody working to achieve something. Not one person making up for everybody. I work hard because I want to be rich, I can't share my work and money just because somebody won't work hard for whatever reason. I earn my money, they earn theirs.

staunch 14y ago

He probably rightly senses that his boss wouldn't feel the way you hope you would. In fact I don't think most people would offer him a rational incentive at all. If he saves the company $1 million a year are you actually going to cut him a $200k+ bonus? I'd be very doubtful of anyone who says they would. Most people would give him $20k if they're especially generous and a pat on the head.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ohashi 14y ago
Or he could simply be replacing himself with no reward. Oh, you've automated it? Thanks. Bye.
- billybob 14y ago
  That's possible, but only if they're stupid. They'd be losing someone who can knows their business and could automate their next manual process. I'd suggest he say this: "hey boss, I think I can automate this process, increasing accuracy and productivity. Would you give me salary X if I can do it?" If the boss says "awesome, yes!", then he's got a better job. If the boss says no or is lukewarm, he could keep doing what he's doing, but actually study programming in the time he's goofing off and start a job search. Either way, he's on a path to getting to program, not having to hide it, and getting properly compensated. The more difficult question is: what if they lay off his coworkers because of his innovation? How should he feel then?
  - loup-vaillant 14y ago
    > The more difficult question is: what if they lay off his coworkers because of his innovation? How should he feel then? That's a question of how to deal with a broken system. Automation is by definition the destruction of manual work. Most of the time, of boring manual work. This is great. We should automate as much as we can. Oh, but it happens right now: hourly productivity, according to my source[1], more than tripled since the fifties. But, as you point out, sudden increase of productivity mechanically creates unemployment, if you don't have a massive consumption growth to absorb it —not a good idea in the long term, and doesn't happen anyway. There are several solutions out of this dilemma, which you can apply in parallel. The most powerful one is: work less (at the national level). Get nearly everyone to work 32 hours per week (typically 4 days a week) instead of the usual 40. (You can use incentives instead of force if you don't want to appear too communist) If Productivity grows again too much in the next decades, get down to 28, 24, or even less. There. I'm happy to be a programmer, whose main job is to destroy others'. Except the system is broken, and shows no sign of being fixed. Getting back to your difficult question, I don't know what I'd actually do. I'd probably tell no one, given the risks, both for me and my coworkers. I'd feel bad about reaping all the bonuses, though —but I would save them to buy a house or whatever. [1] http://www.roosevelt2012.fr/propdetails?propid=13 http://www.roosevelt2012.fr/propdetails?propid=13 (French, see 3rd chart. Watch out, it seems Wikipedia disagrees —maybe they're not measuring the same thing?)
  - ohashi 14y ago
    Let's do some math. He's saying he gets 90% of the bonus pool and expects many other people only get 100-200. So 5 others, 500-1000 for them, his take home would be 4500-9500 bonus. If there are 10 others, 1000-2000 for them, his take home would be 9500-19500 bonus. We're potentially talking 6 figure bonuses per year. Whose salary level do you think that would put him on? Do you think they will accept the data entry guy becoming as compensated? I doubt it would work politically and financially off some basic napkin math.
16s 14y ago
You'd be surprised. I know several guys who pay regional sales manages 15% of net. No matter how much is sold, they get 15% every month. This encourages them to work hard and allows them to directly influence the income. And yes, if they sell 1 million bucks of goods and services, they get 15% of that.
- staunch 14y ago
  There are quite a few places where people get a % of the money they earn/save. Data entry generally isn't one of them.
stfu 14y ago
This incentive question is really a good one. I personally always viewed these rates as ridiculously low so that people would be fools to think about how to eliminate their own jobs. It would be very interesting to analyze if indeed higher monetary incentives do rise the level of innovation within a company.

tbatterii 14y ago

presumably it is management who nurtured the environment that lead to team members competing against each other for a slice of the bonus. So though management might be furious, they should re-consider they should turn some of that fury on themselves(this never happens).

underdown 14y ago
they should be furious with themselves because one of their employees had a great idea that could lower their costs?
- nikatwork 14y ago
  no, management should be furious with themselves because they have created an environment where innovation is not shared due to a dumb bonus structure, leading staff to optimize for personal instead of organizational outcomes.
  - tbatterii 14y ago
    exactly. in my experience, management hardly ever holds themselves accountable for their decisions. That might be an east coast thing though. :)

pasbesoin 14y ago

Unless you have nothing to offer him, which is often the case for many layers of management. In which case, he's screwed. There are reasons people do not take initiative in certain very bureaucratic positions and organizations. Sometimes, it is not rewarded -- in fact, it is punished. Any decision (e.g. whether to tell management) needs to be made with a good deal of contextual awareness. I hate to sound like a party-pooper, but speaking from experience... P.S. I'll add: He's already found the built-in reward. It sounds like it's a significant amount of bonus money, plus effectively a very light workload. What are they going to offer him that improves upon that? How high up in management would one need to go to find authority for such a decision/spend? How many layers of management do you think separate his data entry position from a manager with that authority? P.P.S. OTOH, if they are not entirely brain dead (and who knows?), metrics will eventually cause them to investigate. So, enjoy it while it lasts, and maybe consider whether he can turn eventual exposure to his advantage. (And if metrics don't attract attention, that's a pretty good sign he is indeed dealing with a brain dead organization.) /cynicism

seanalltogether 14y ago

I thought the same thing at first, but then I read how he's got this whole thing tied together. >We download PDF batches, not paper... >I wrote the script from scratch. It is a combination of reading the screen for data, a screen font reader, mouse automation/keyboard automation. >It's part C++ and part "Game Maker", I did it for prototyping but got lazy and never rewrote it. >Plus the script is pretty frustrating to setup in the morning, so they would get frustrated figuring it out. :P (requires a certain monitor arrangement at certain resolutions, windows in the right place, etc. Management would be furious if it was a simple script that you just hit "Go" and it does everything, but it sounds like it's finicky enough that management would be too confused to be angry.

lukevdp 14y ago
They all sound like problems that can be overcome, just that it's not worth it for him to overcome them right now. If it's worth it for his company to overcome them, he has his bargaining chip right there.

SCdF 14y ago

Absolutely. Maybe office politics works differently in the states (where I presume he's from), but it sounds like he's keeping it quite so he can screw around at work. If I made a script that deals with 98% of all of my work I could not imagine not sharing that with my bosses. To me (and I'm sure lots of people don't share this sentiment) it would feel morally wrong not to.

Zak 14y ago
I'd normally agree with you, but it might depend a bit on management's likely reaction. If he has reason to suspect it would be negative, he might be right to keep it secret. There do exist companies that would lay him off and keep his work. That would be monumentally stupid, but it happens.
droithomme 14y ago
He's ten times more productive than anyone else there and you feel he is screwing around too much and is morally in the wrong. Would you punish him?

SCdF 14y ago

ajross 14y ago

You realize that his "manager" is probably some kid just out of college, or another career grunt just clocking in the hours, right? This is data entry. There's no rewarding of initiative in that world: not at the bottom nor in the middle. You have to get to low level executives before you start seeing people with an interest in "changing" or "improving" the system.

starpilot 14y ago

> If I were a member of management, and I found out that he was doing this, I would be furious. And this is why you're not management. He hasn't shared it yet, why assume he would not ever? You could show some understanding and realize there are many reasons an employee might be uncomfortable showing a radically advantageous method immediately to management.

droithomme 14y ago

"I would be furious" Furious? Would you punish him then?

kamaal 14y ago

>>he didn't share his innovation with the rest of the team and improve everyones' efficiency Team work is everybody working to achieve something. Not one person making up for everybody. I work hard because I want to be rich, I can't share my work and money just because somebody won't work hard for whatever reason. I earn my money, they earn theirs.