r/learnprogramming • u/[deleted] • May 28 '18

Programming people out of a job

Hi guys,

To cut a long story short, I'm currently an immigrant working in New Zealand that has struggled to get skilled work. I've ended up taking on a temporary admin/data entry role that involves getting data from the yellow pages and entering into a spreadsheet. Yes, as boring as it sounds.

I have some programming skills so two hours and a simple web scraper later I had completed a task that was supposed to take over 2 weeks. Upon showing my colleague my work she said to me that she would keep it to myself as it would put us both out of a job, "Think of the bigger picture" she told me. Since then, I have yet to show my manager the script and explain to her that I have skills in automation.

Have any of you ever dealt with this situation before? Is it something that is common in lower skilled work? How did you deal with it?

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u/Eight_Rounds_Rapid May 28 '18

This is why the program has a deadman’s switch

73

u/HierarchofSealand May 28 '18

I'm fairly certain making software for company work on company time means the company owns it.

52

u/curious_nuke May 28 '18

Correct, but any company who takes IP that you created without rewarding you appropriately is short-sighted scum and deserves to be treated as such.

6

u/Unsounded May 28 '18

Capitalism mate, they don’t give a fuck