
Finally fired after 6 years - silkodyssey
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/finally_fired_after_6_years/
======
minimaxir
This is blogspam of a Reddit post. Original post:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/finally_fired_after_6_years/)

~~~
dang
URL changed from [http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2016/05/programmer-
fired...](http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2016/05/programmer-fired-
after-6-years-realizes-he-doesnt-know-how-to-code). Thanks.

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f055
They fired the only guy who automated all his tasks, and did it so well nobody
noticed for 6 years. They are idiots. They should have assigned him to
automate the hell out of everybody else's tasks and gain tons of additional
work-hours for free. This reminds me of that guy several years back who
outsourced all his tasks to China and was employee of the month again and
again. They also found out via IT dept, checking his strange VPN traffic. And
again, fired the one guy who would be a perfect Outsource Lead. Oh well, the
bots are coming, automation will rule them all, and those companies who are
devoted to lines of code and employee keystrokes... Well, they will become
obsolete.

~~~
Declanomous
I've heard that factories will rotate lazy people around the factory floor
because the method that requires the least amount of effort to achieve the
needed result. Then the company can teach the lazy person's method to their
less lazy/less creative employees.

Perhaps the story is apocryphal, but I think there is a grain of truth in the
story. Managed properly, laziness can benefit the company. The problem you run
in to is that lazy individuals are difficult to manage properly. A company
isn't going to realize the benefits from a lazy individual if they aren't
permitted to find their own solution to problems, and the shortcuts lazy
individuals take can be dangerous depending on what shortcuts they are taking.

I wouldn't want to work for a company that is willing to fire someone for not
doing anything for six years because you wrote a script that did basically
everything. It implies they value the effort pertaining to my work rather than
the actual output, which is insane. That just reeks of terrible management.

That being said, I don't want to imply that all lazy people make great
employees. I've definitely worked with people who were just completely
unwilling to do anything but the bare minimum, if they did any work at all. I
don't think individuals who actively avoid all work without coming up with an
alternative are of much use to any organization.

~~~
spc476
I heard there are four types of people who work for you. In order (from most
preferred to least preferred) are:

1) The smart and lazy---they'll find the easiest way to do the job (or
automate it).

2) The dumb and hardworking---you an tell them what to do and they'll do it
exactly how you tell them to.

3) The dumb and lazy---they won't help, but they won't necessarily hurt either
(just the bottom line).

4) The smart and the hardworking---terrible combination.

I actually have experience with the fourth type of person. Twenty years ago I
was doing some consulting work for a bank and had to convert a printed
training manual into HTML (mid 90s). The person helping me was very smart
_and_ hardworking. I'm smart, but a bit lazy. I had to argue with the person
_not_ to dive into one process (linking each word in the text to an entry on
the glossary page) because it would take _hours_ to do by hand (around 100
files, perhaps 100 vocabulary words). We actually argued _longer_ than I took
for me to code up the solution (using lex---we were working on a Unix system).

~~~
LyndsySimon
This is attributed to Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, a German general in WW1 and
WW2.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-
Equord](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord)

~~~
spc476
Heh. Funny that it's a different order, but the smart and lazy are still at
the top.

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kenperkins
Instead of asking what else he can do, or provide more value or grow into more
responsibility, he sat on his hands and played League all day?

I'm disappointed it took them 6 years to act on it.

~~~
MBCook
Well he was 22 at the time, so that makes a bit more sense.

Honestly I've had times on one of my jobs where I just had to kill time all
day and I _hated_ it. It's one of the reason I later decided to leave.

~~~
kenperkins
We've all had times where we're not fully invested in our work. Sometimes even
weeks, maybe months in extreme circumstances. 6 years is absurdly bad. I can't
imagine the management getting off lightly here either.

~~~
MBCook
Either his manager needs some serious training (or a new job) or he just fell
through the cracks and ended up in a position where no one was in charge of
him and no one realized it.

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matt_wulfeck
I feel mostly sorry, not jealous for this guy. Even though he plays it cool,
I'm sure he lived in constant fear of being discovered for six years and being
speechless any questioning.

~~~
honua
Plus.. I actually enjoy coding. I wouldn't even want to automate my job. I
know that in the past I've wanted ways to escape working, but now that I'm a
developer I couldn't imagine finding ways not to work (I guess except for
browsing HN)

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bryanrasmussen
if he did nothing but play league of legends for 6 years how good is he at it?

[https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-ways-to-earn-
money-p...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-ways-to-earn-money-
playing-League-of-Legends)

~~~
minimaxir
OP does actually answer that:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/finally_fired_after_6_years/d3g4pmi)

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lordnacho
Dude has 200k in the bank. If he's found motivation, he can just do a masters
course. That will teach him a few things and get him back in the coding
saddle, and give a plausible reason for why he's looking for work afterwards.

What's scary is the people who actually have been coding for several years and
still don't know how to do it. No version control, no idea what common
patterns are, ridiculously complex spaghetti code. We all know them.

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kilroy123
Why the hell didn't he freelance or try to start a small business on the side.
He could have made double or triple the money!

Also, I wonder how IT eventually found out.

~~~
ccvannorman
You may have missed the part about him being lazy.

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mathattack
I find it hard to be sympathetic. Why is he sad? 6 years of playing video
games on someone else's dollar is fantastic. Be glad it lasted more than 3
months. People who slog away for 50-60 hours a week on drudge work still find
time for self-improvement. If you want to get kudos for automating your job
away, tell your boss and their boss. That's how you get promoted.

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samspenc
I'm not sure if I should ask this - but any guesses on which company OP was
working for?

"I got a job at a company in the Bay Area, CA that was completely unknown 7
years ago but is now incredibly well known. It is actually quite hard to get a
job here now, from what I hear."

I'm not from the Bay Area, so I can't think of a company (other than Facebook)
that fits that profile.

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xbmcuser
I consider myself smart and lazy as well. Cut down the time required by
predecessor to do the work from 8hrs to 2hrs. But was lucky my boss realized
that as well gave me more responsibilities and a promotion few months into the
job. Though we have regular arguments about me streamlining other peoples work
as she does want to change herself.

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honua
I guess the biggest question here is - does OP even want to be a programmer?
Maybe they'd rather do something else in life.. but e.g. for me, it's been my
goal of the past two years (which I'm finally s/realizing/achieving/)

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kup0
If he can automate his work, milk it for the weekly paycheck, and do it well
enough to stay around for six years, more power to him. He made his laziness
pay off.

Least amount of non-automated work for the most amount of pay off, I respect
it.

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thrill
"Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight
shooter with upper management written all over him."

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smegel
> doing Quality Assurance work

So I am guessing if he was actually a developer to begin with his job would
have been a bit harder to automate.

~~~
minimaxir
Speaking as a QA Engineer myself, QA is as rigorous and important to the
software lifecycle as development.

The continual disrespect for QA engineers is somewhat frustrating.

~~~
smegel
The point I was making is you don't become a tennis player by kicking a
football.

