Clever employee automates data entry part of his job, system crashes six months later and he has no idea what to do: 'I completely forgot how to do my job'

This employee thought he gamed the system, until he forgot what the system was.

Most folks do not enjoy the most menial parts of their jobs. It's only natural to want to implement ways in which you can minimize the time it takes to complete repetitive tasks. One of this author's main responsibilities at work was to process data and invoices from various clients. This daily task took several hours to finish before the author could start the parts of his job that actually involved creative and intellectually stimulating work. 

One day, he was fed up with the entire process and devised a plan to automate those tasks. This gave him the unique opportunity to run his automated script every morning and pretend to be working while actually enjoying his morning coffee and getting his social media fix. Of course, we all need a taste of that every now and then, but one should always be prepared for a systemic hiccup. 

Let's just say that this author was not exactly prepared for anything to go wrong with his automated script, and when it actually did, he had zero memory of how to perform his job manually. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from several members of this online community.

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  • Let this story serve as a perfect example for how technology can be an incredible tool for allowing us to use our energy in more productive and efficient ways, but there's a downside. You don't want to rely too much on technology that you literally do not know what to do with yourself when it fails… because it inevitably will.

    This man was giving Julia Roberts in Leave the World Behind, that Netflix movie that depicts the consequences of a technological blackout. We all need to know how to function in our jobs and in our lives on a fundamental level without the latest technological innovation. That's not to say we shouldn't also embrace these innovations. We should, but you can use something without becoming overly dependent on it that you become completely useless as a person.

    Unfortunately for this author, that is the predicament in which he found himself…

  • "I automated my daily work tasks with a Python script 6 months ago. It broke today, and I realized I completely forgot how to do my job."

    I work in a fairly standard office role involving data entry and processing invoices. Every morning, I'm supposed to grab attachments from specific emails,
    via Begods
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  • parse the data, enter it into our legacy ERP system, and generate a daily report. It used to take me about 2 hours of mind-numbing clicking every morning.
    via Begods
  • About six months ago, I got fed up. I spent a weekend writing a Python script to do it all for me. It connects to Outlook, parses the PDFs, and uses an API to push the data where it needs to go.
    via Begods
  • Since then, my routine has been: arrive at work, get coffee, run the script, browse Reddit for 2 hours, then send the "All done!" email. My boss thinks I'm incredibly efficient and consistent.
    via Begods
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  • Today, disaster struck. One of our vendors slightly changed their invoice layout. The script crashed with an error I hadn't handled.
    via Begods
  • I stared at the screen and felt a cold sweat. I realized I didn't remember the manual process. I didn't remember the login path for the specific module in the ERP system because the script handles the tokens. I had to
    via Begods
  • frantically search through my old physical notebooks from my first week on the job just to figure out how to process one document.
    via Begods
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  • It took me 4 hours to do what the script usually does in 3 minutes. My boss stopped by and asked if everything was okay because I looked stressed. I told him "just a complex batch of data today."
    via Begods
  • I'm currently fixing the parser at home so I don't have to actually work tomorrow. I feel like a fraud, but a very well-rested one.
    via Begods
  • A frustrated employee puts his head in his hands at his work station in an office.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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  • PuffyPearly You didn't forget your job, you outsourced it to a robot and became its manager, That's not fraud, that's evolution, Fix the script and get back to your important reddit research.
    via Begods
  • OP Begods Thanx
    via Begods
  • WayneH_nz Now you need to add an extra hour to your your email. Slowly over the next two to three weeks. And just say things are taking longer. Now you have built in wiggle room.
    via Begods
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  • Competitive_Yak_4112 Python brain rot, Al brain rot's lesser-known cousin. Those paths in your brain have atrophied from lack of use.
    via Begods
  • la_descente I'm very new to code ....but dont you include the task in code? Couldn't you go back and read what you wrote out?
    via Begods
  • Ok-Style-8059 Always do your job even though you have something automated. Don't always depend on automated task to do your jobs for you.
    via Begods
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