'No Harm Done': IT Employee Goes Viral For Automating Job & Playing Video Games

...In their original post, the anonymous IT employee said that they handle all of the digital evidence their employer uses during trials and that when COVID arrived, they requested to work from home. Within a week of working from home, the Redditor said that they wrote, debugged, and perfected a simple script to perform all their entire job for them...

"I clock in every day, play video games or do whatever, and at the end of the day I look over the logs to make sure everything ran smoothly...then clock out," they wrote. "I'm only at my desk maybe 10 minutes a day."...

While most software companies have something in the employment contract that gives them first refusal for “non-project” software employees might write, that generally only triggers if you want to sell it, if you just want to use it, especially on the job, nobody cares. And of course this is a law firm so they might not have that.

As for unauthorized software he’s the IT guy. They’re usually the people deciding what software is or isn’t allowed. He says it’s allowed. Generally the only time IT guys need approval is to buy stuff.

He’s probably under salary. When you’re on salary you’re paid to get the job done. If it takes you 20 hours a week congrats, if it takes you 80 too bad. So wages wise if he’s getting the job done he’s earning his pay.

The only potential problem I see is if the firm counts him as billable hours. If they’re charging customers for his time then that could be an issue. Even if his automation if accurately logging its time that’s not really his hours. But if they’re not billing for his time, it’s clean.

I’m impressed, he knows his job and he’s getting it done. I knew a guy that was IT for a drug maker. Owing to the chemicals they worked with they were required by the fed to have an EMT on site. And EMT who would spend 99% of his time sitting in his office hoping nobody needed him. Well it turns out this guy I knew also had an EMT license, in fact he also taught EMT classes at the community college. So he worked it out with the company to get the full IT salary and half the EMT salary. Boom. If you’ve got the skills, use em to make money.

Firm believer if you are accomplishing your goals.quotas/mbos/objectives it shouldn’t really matter when or how much you work

I retired well before Covid hit. I have worked as a hourly employee and as salaried employee. My take is if someone can work from home, they should be classified as a salaried employee and should be exempt from from overtime..

All depends on his employment agreement.

Without knowing the specifics, nothing in this story indicates he did anything illegal, in breach of contract, or morally wrong.

He appears to have gotten the work done he was hired to do.

If I was his employer and found out, I would not fire him or penalize him for what he did. I’d just look to put his talents to better use.

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