Down the Efficiency Rabbit Hole
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Haven't written anything in a few weeks, but I wrote something tonight inspired by past experiences and also recent experiences. Let me know what you think!
http://www.thanksaj.com/2014/12/down-the-efficiency-rabbit-hole-knowing-when-you-cross-the-line/
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Interesting post. I'm looking at it from a different perspective in that I'm internal IT. I receive a fixed salary regardless of how much work I accomplish or how many hours I work. Whereas you are paid by a client.
Generally speaking, I don't automate enough. If there is a task that I perform annually and takes me an hour to complete manually, and I spend 2 hours on automating it to reduce the time complete to 15 minutes then the ROI is a couple of years. But I'm always under time pressure, so I carry on doing it manually. I prioritize the short-term over the long-term efficiency, which is often wrong. But gradually I've automated many of my tasks and after 12 years (12 years!) of working here, I'm now really benefiting from the long hours I put in working on automation in my early years.
My biggest issue is with automating other people's tasks. It's an issue because this is my primary job - making the whole company more efficient. The problem is, let's say Sue in accounts performs task A and task A currently takes her 4 hours per week. If I spend 12 hours on scripting I could get that task down to 2 hours. That's a saving of 100 hours per year. It appears a no-brainer to automate.
However, the issue is although Sue and I are both contracted to work 40 hours per work, I'm currently working 50 hours per week and Sue is only working 30 hours per week. So I end up working late, and Sue ends up browsing Facebook and chatting with colleagues for 10 hours a week and leaving bang on 5 o'clock. So unless the company deals with Sue's underemployment (for example, by redeploying her to other activities, or making her redundant), there is no real saving to the company. All it means is I end up working even more unpaid overtime than I currently do.
Even if Sue is more conscientious, and doesn't slack off at work, if I automate her task, she may just find new work to fill her 40 hours. There is no guarantee that the new work she finds is productive and benefiting the company. Many people are just busy for busy's sake.
So I often ignore Sue's request to automate. Which is frustrating for me and for her. But it's equally frustrating working my ass off to help a user whilst the user is messing around on Facebook all day long.
Not sure if that is relevant to your post at all but I felt like a rant! Sorry!
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Nice read.
Comment unrelated to the topic - the comments area is impossible to read because it's black on dark grey.
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@Dashrender said:
Nice read.
Comment unrelated to the topic - the comments area is impossible to read because it's black on dark grey.
I see that now...I will work on that...
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Oh, and thanks @Dashrender !
