
Programmer automates his job, gets fired after 6 years - tonteldoos
http://interestingengineering.com/programmer-automates-job-6-years-boss-fires-finds/
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nickpsecurity
Oh, I have an even better one for all of you along similar lines. Dug it out
of Wayback Machine. Company thought it was one of those "advanced persistent
threat" malware from super-hackers in China. Nope. The enterprise just hired
someone who was as enterprising as them. :)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20130320154454/http://securitybl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130320154454/http://securityblog.verizonbusiness.com/2013/01/14/case-
study-pro-active-log-review-might-be-a-good-idea/)

Led me to create a security scheme for pulling off the same thing without
detection. Depends on circumstances of course. Posted it on Schneier blog with
the rest of my essays. I still wonder if I was first to do security scheme or
protocol for self-outsourcing. Fun thought experiment if nothing else.

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/01/friday_squid_b...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/01/friday_squid_bl_360.html#c1102977)

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Dr_tldr
...and that's why it's a bad idea to separate QA from your dev team. In the
long run, everyone would've been happier if his role on the dev team had been
to automate the tests and then continue to work on more interesting things. If
he and his company had taken that route, he'd be a very well-qualified and
well-paid senior engineer right now.

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make3
Let me doubt this quite a bit. What he did was an impressive display of lack
of foresight, career savy, professionnalism, interest in his professional
work. What I'm saying is, engineers are thinking workers that need some
indidual drive and forward thinking to succeed. He showed less ability for
intrinsic motivation than a seven year old.

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exabrial
Probably a promotion would have been a better idea

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greydius
It absolutely would have been if he'd demonstrated what he'd done right at the
beginning and went to work on something else. But to sit around collecting a
paycheck for years is inexcusable. It doesn't matter how brilliant someone is.

~~~
tn13
> But to sit around collecting a paycheck for years is inexcusable. It doesn't
> matter how brilliant someone is.

Why is in inexcusable ? I wont mind if my employee does it. A lot of smart
programmers finished their job in 4 hours and went home early. Got pay raises
too.

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King-Aaron
Efficient work is hard to argue, but personally I see it as holding a level of
contempt for your company.

~~~
tn13
I don't think I will punish my employee for having contempt for the company.
That is how dictators work. If a smart employee holds my company in contempt I
should probably figure out why.

~~~
King-Aaron
I don't feel that it's the same thing here. I do agree that if someone is
unhappy a decent manager should find out why and do what can be done to change
it.

However, I see someone sitting back for _six years_ without offering any input
on improvements or anything, just literally collecting a cheque and doing
nothing as not being efficient or showing motivation for the company.

I agree, it shows he's smart, though he doesn't show commitment in my opinion,
which is why I wouldn't justify a promotion. That's just my thoughts on the
matter.

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tedmiston
Maybe he should work in dev ops...

