'I clock in every day [and] play video games or whatever': Employee automates all their work being able to complete their 8-hour work day in 10 minutes from home

You've probably heard that old adage about the new hire who goes in for their first day of training ready to do everything by the book but is instead surprised and maybe even disappointed when they're instead taught all of the shortcuts that the experienced grizzled employee has developed over the years, cutting out the parts of the process that are superfluous and unnecessary. The problem is that by learning and only using the shortcuts in the first instance, they're never going to understand the ins and outs of every step of the process as the veteran employee does.

It's the same reason your teacher asks you to show your work when completing a math equation. It's not about whether or not you can get to the answer; it's about knowing how you got there. This is because a lot of times in life, and certainly in most technical work, true understanding entails knowing the ins and outs of each step so that you can troubleshoot each and every step to figure out why you're not getting the answer you're expecting.

Experience is key here. It's not about creating shortcuts, but about understanding the process deeply. You can't skip steps or create shortcuts without first understanding why each step works the way it does. This understanding is what allows you to skip or change a step without creating unexpected results.

At the end of the day, they hired this employee to get a job done correctly and to their expectations. It just turns out that this employee had the means and knowledge necessary to complete the work in a different way than they might have been anticipating… skipping a lot of steps that they would have been completing in perpetuity by instead automating them and overseeing the execution of the automation.

This thread caused quite a stir when it was first posted in this online community for workplace discussion, and it remains ever an important and pertinent discussion in the modern workplace where AI and automation is being implemented at every turn.

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