Employee finishes his ‘real’ work by 10 in the morning and spends the rest of his day pretending to be busy, leading him to debate whether or to come clean to his boss: ‘I automated 3 hours of my daily work. Now I spend that time pretending to be busy'

• 
  via Vitaly Gariev

  A man sits at a desk with his head in his hands

• "I automated 3 hours of my daily work. Now I spend that time pretending to be busy."

  
  via Creative-letter-4902
• 
  via Creative-letter-4902
• 
  via Creative-letter-4902

• Of course, the easy answer to this ethical dilemma would be to just avoid saying anything at all costs and keep on pretending, but in reality, limiting oneself to relaxing in that self-made limbo is not that easy. On the one hand, managers could eventually realize their employee has been hiding this information the entire time, which would also stir up some conflict, and on the other hand, our friend the worker is left with too many anxiety-filled free hours.

• A practical solution would be to use those free hours to study for a certification, to upskill as much as humanly possible before managers realize what's going on, making oneself so useful to the company that one becomes indispensable. The thing is, if we realized that being as efficient as possible could actually be our greatest flaw, we'd all collectively resort to deliberate incompetence and vagueness, and that can't possibly be our only resource in the fight against robots. 

• The issue here might be related to flexibility within companies and the humanity of their managers. This worker could arguably teach his teammates automation-related skills and help restructure the tasks of his entire department, resulting in no one being kicked out but each and every one cohabitating in a newly conquered state of perpetual bliss. Of course, that could never happen outside of Wonderland, and companies are eager to save every cent, so they will let go of every human that gets in the way of them achieving minimum expenses.

• 
  via Mohammad Rahmani

  Man in black shirt using computer for coding

• 'It feels like winning and losing at the same time' might be his keenest observation; he managed to win 20 hours a week of free time and to lose his mind when he finally got it. At any rate, our hero here will have to keep pretending until he is found out or at least until he lands another job at which he will, by no means, even dare to excel.

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