'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

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Sep 7, 2024 10:00 AM EDT

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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  • 01
    "I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone..."
    via Christopher Gower
  • 02
    I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone. I saw some similar posts to this so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon. I work for a mid-size lawfirm that hired me as an IT specialist to handle all of their digital evidence for trials. The law-firm was in the process of changing their evidence managing system to Cloud based and wanted me to to be the only person with admin
    via Throwaway59724
  • 03
    access to the Cloud, everyone else would be limited to view only and would work on a local network drive. Sounds great, but I quickly realized this was the only task they expected me to perform in my 8-hour shift. This was in no way an 8-hour job, so I was stuck finding busy work at the office. most of the time.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 04
    Then (p^ndemic) happened and I was asked if there was any way I could work from home. I set up a remote workstation, tunneled it to my house, and that's when the real fun began. In about a week I was able to write, debug, and perfect a simple script that performed my entire job. It essentially scans the on-site drive for any new files, generates hash values for them,
    via Throwaway59724
  • 05
    transfers them to the Cloud, then generates hash values again for fidelity (in court you have to prove digital evidence hasn't been tampered with). I clock in every day, play video games or do whatever, and at the end of the day. I look over the logs to make sure everything ran smoothly... then clock out. I'm only at my desk maybe 10 minutes a day.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 06
    For a while I felt guilty, like I was ripping the law-firm off, but eventually I convinced myself that as long as everyone is happy there's no harm done. I'm doing exactly what they hired. me to do, all of the work is done in a timely manner, and I get to enjoy my life. Win win for everyone involved.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 07
    Edit: Wanted to answer a few questions I've been getting. 1. How much am I getting paid? Enough. 2. What work did they hire me to do? Sorry if it wasn't clear. The firm gets thousands of digital documents, photos, etc on a daily basis. All of this goes on a local drive. My job is to transfer all of these files to the Cloud and then verify their fidelity.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 08
    3. Why do they think this is an 8- hour job? Before they hired me they were struggling to keep up with things. Employees submit a spreadsheet of all the files they've placed on the local drive at the end of the day. Then the admin manager would check the spreadsheet and manually drag and drop the folders/files into the Cloud. I still receive the spreadsheet every day and it's what I use to verify my logs.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 09
    4. Why am I lazy / why am I wasting my life? I don't feel like I am. I do have a passion project that I work on during the day, but it's not relevant to the discussion. Hence the "whatever" portion of "play video games or do whatever." 5. Why did I feel guilty, they're lawyers lol? I know it doesn't fit most posts here, but I don't hate my boss. He's actually really nice, albeit not tech savvy at all. I don't actually work with or see the lawyers, I fall under administration since they don't hav
    via Throwaway59724
  • 10
    6. What code language am I using / how can you do this? The script is in batch with some portions of powershell. The base code is fairly simple and most of it came from Googling ".bat transfer files" followed by ".bat how to only transfer certain file types" etc. The trick was making it work with my office, knowing where to scan for new files, knowing where not to scan due to lag (seriously, if you have a folder with 200,000 .txt files that will severally slow down your scans. Better to move it
    via Throwaway59724
  • 11
    7. Why don't you sell it and make bank? Please understand that this is not some high end program that's worth millions. This is a few lines of code written in notepad. It only has value in this situation because no one else had the skill to do it. This is the type of script people put on github with a $5 price tag linked to their PayPal.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 12
    Edit 2: One more edit to answer a few more things. 1. Don't delete the script due to legal reasons. I agree. I checked my employee contact and there is no IP agreement in there so I thought I'd be safe, but it's probably better if I don't try my luck.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 13
    2. How are you using your own equipment? Short answer, the local drive is theirs, the Cloud drive is theirs, the VPN is theirs. The PC that I bought with my own money specifically for this task only runs the script. There is no work files or evidence being stored on my PC. The script is literally the only thing on the PC other than the OS. Carpenters might buy their own tools because they know exactly what they need and what works for them. I bought my own PC for the same reason.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 14
    3. It can't be this simple / this is fake because you aren't doing blah blah. You're right, it's not this simple. There are more steps involved in the script and it performs functions I haven't discussed. Discussing these functions would be more likely to give away my location. The core of the script, transfer and hash, is accurate. It's the extra steps I take that are specific to my office that I'm leaving out.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 15
    BlobTheBuilderz Think of your wages as a subscription service to your automation program lol. Big companies love subscription services right
    via Throwaway59724
  • 16
    Barbed If it helps you justify it, they're not paying you for the 10 minutes a day it takes you to do that, they're paying the work to be done reliably and an expert on standby full time, ready to jump in and address any issues as they happen. If you leave, even if you leave the script, if they don't replace you and something. goes wrong, they're up creek.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 17
    Str... I feel like all these type of posts teach me is I need to 1.) learn how to code and 2) find a laid back office job. Edit: Wow, thank you all for the upvotes and comments!! Maybe I'll look into coding during the weekends. The only problem is my job is mainly physically making/cleaning things with some filling out boxes in excel/word documents.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 18
    Gi... I just took a job at a power company. They explained what they need, and how many hours they expect a week. Its gonna take about a month to automate. Then 30 seconds a month mobile depositing my check. Cant wait.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 19
    Wrecksomething The reality is that a LOT of jobs are like this. What they really need is someone effectively "on call." No one else in your office has the knowledge to operate or troubleshoot those scripts if something goes wrong, and it's an essential function that must work. Even if they knew you automated it, they
    via Throwaway59724
  • 20
    might not want to fill your plate with 40 hours of makework because this function is critical if it ever needs your attention. The problems are (1) that being "on call" for this one task probably wouldn't provide the compensation you need to survive, (2) being on call would prevent you from getting other FT
    via Throwaway59724
  • 21
    work you'd need, (3) we have a Puritanical cult telling us everyone must work 40 hour weeks to justify existing, and (4) there are caring professions and other productive workers who unfairly are kept working 40 hours a week for virtually no pay while we soak in administrative bliss.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 22
    I've worked in places where the entire office quietly whispers about how no one works anywhere near 40 hours. They're just expected to be polite about it. You can't do anything to challenge it because it's unfair to the blue collar workers that our economy relentlessly screws already, and because it's a sin to the Puritans who think we live to work.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 23
    This is why skyrocketing productivity hasn't resulted in less work for all of us. Secretly, it has, but we don't want to acknowledge that or distribute the free time fairly because it would loosen the grip of capitalism squeezing our hearts.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 24
    cowgoes_moo As a fellow professional in the IT field, I see nothing wrong with what you're doing. Clearly you're over qualified for what they hired you for what you do. You're getting paid for your job and you found a way to do it with minimum effort, I see zero. reason why you should feel guilty about it.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 25
    If you do ever feel like working full time every day you can definitely pursue a higher level job that suits your qualifications/ability. But if you want to keep doing what you do so you can shift your focus on other things in life that's 100% within your rights to do too. Great job good sir!
    via Throwaway59724
  • 26
    unmerciful0u812 You haven't told anyone. NEVER tell anyone.
    via Throwaway59724
  • 27
    Royal_Actuary9212 find out if any other law firms need tour services
    via Throwaway59724

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