My wife works from home and I’ve ‘automated’ her job- an ethical question.

Question

Anke Fleischer · Accepted Answer

While just out of school I got a job at IBM. Though it seemed great and all turned out I was just doing support service for RCA products. So I worked there for a day and did training, and my job consisted of getting numbers and a whole lot of drop down boxes. Most of the time was spent moving my mouse cursor around and clicking the same things again and again (for my area of the dept) - and my hand got tired.  So I just went online got a mouse-macro program and and set up a few key short cuts and did 80 reports in 2hrs. The guy who was training me worked there for 5 years and would do 100 reports a day.  I took the free time I had and created training manual for everything I learned.  The manager got a wiff of this and gave me a lecture to stay with what I'm taught and what I was doing was wrong (installing a macro program on the company PC)  ...I quit.

Dela · Answer

If she spends at least 25% of the saved hours in vigorous sexytime with you, then it's perfectly ethical.

Arin · Answer

What's unethical is the 40hr work week.  You found an innovative way to get the same amount of work done in a fraction of the time, which is itself worth whatever her salary is, if not more. She's getting paid to do a job, and that job is getting done.  Just keep it quiet and milk this for the priceless reward that is free time to do whatever she loves.  You also might eventually want to think about marketing the program to other companies (not your wife's, of course).

Ursula Eberhart · Answer

Does she have to enter time and say it took her the full amount of time? If not, I don't see it as illegal as she's not lying. Unethical - possibly- considering they think they're getting 40 hrs of work per week out of her, but they're only getting 30 mins.

Mario · Answer

Nope. In fact it might just be genius, you pretty much are winning at the game of Life right now.

Kalie · Answer

I'll bet they didn't pay Clark Kent less even though he typed all his work up in ten seconds.

Narisara · Answer

As an employer I look for output, not input. I set my staff goals and deadlines, how they balance things and achieve them is why I'm paying them in the first place. If they couldn't see a way to systemise this in the first place, then it's their loss.  However, depending on your wife's outlook this could be a good career move. If a member of staff approached me and said, I have found a way of automating my job, thus saving you */month I would not let that person go, I would find another use for them. On the flip side, an ex girlfriend was let go for doubling her sales target, which meant they had too much work and there was no need for more sales (small minded, small company). Is it illegal? Probably not. Is it unethical? Definitely not.

Sophie Drechsler · Answer

She should ask for 20% more work and a 10% raise.

Sevil · Answer

"Look up "Results Based Workplace" and you will see that this is not only a very ethical situation, but that some companies have actually begun to implement this exact system. "We pay you X to do Y and don't care how much time it takes or what hours you work on it". "

Afagh · Answer

I just want to say that this is really awesome and your wife is lucky to have you. Personally I think we spend more time working than we ought to. As long as your wife is doing something useful with her time and the program doesn't make any errors, I don't see how this is unethical.  Technically she's doing the job she's paid for, but it wouldn't hurt to check to see if the program is doing what it's supposed to. If it's not making any errors, the company is benefiting from this. Companies phase out jobs with technology all the time. This is just the little guy doing it.

Ulrike Kohler · Answer

I've automated about 60% of my work, too. I'm paid by production, so the efficiency is my profit. It's one of the very best thing about working at home -- that, and working in your jammies.

Melanie Glockner · Answer

I've been working on something similar with my husband. My job is horribly inefficient, tedious, and imho a money sink for the company. The hubs and I have been talking about working on a program that will eliminate a lot of the busy work on my end, save the company money, and save the customers a lot of frustration.  Being a pretty low wage hourly employee, I'm not under any non-compete and I didn't need to sign over anything that says my personal work is owned by the company. When I have it up and running, I'm going to sell it to the company. If they don't want it, I'll take it to their competitor.

Annett Fruehauf · Answer

First of all, check into copyrights and patents for it. Second, liscense said software to company or even think bigger and go regional or industry wide. Third, kickback and receive checks in the mail.

Liora · Answer

They may actually just say you can't do it. Girlfriend works for a financial regulatory agency, she made a macro that saved a lot of time, they told her to stop doing it.

Manuel · Answer

It's not unethical. They're paying her to do a job, not to spend exactly forty hours of her time in the way they want.

Marie Sankt · Answer

She's getting compensated for your knowledge. Over the course of a month you wrote a program that streamlines her job. Depending on how complex the application is that program could be worth a ton to the company. I say no ethical violation here. On the low end of my job I get paid the archive emails for customers because they don't want to. Just basically sitting in front of a PC dragging and dropping emails into archive folders. Or setting auto-archives depending on what structure they need. There's a base amount of time there going to get charged for even if i do it in a 1/4th of that time.

Klaudia Saenger · Answer

"I'm paraphrasing Paul Graham here: "when we force people to sit in an office and work eight hours a day, we're admitting that we can't measure their productivity effectively".  Your wife is being paid for specific tasks, not to work a certain number of hours. Ethically you are in the clear. "

Bergliot · Answer

Work smart not hard

Maisie · Answer

You're golden. Look at it this way. If your wife had a data entry job and could type 100 words per minute, but all the other employees doing the same thing at 50 wpm, is that her fault? If anything, you might have her ask for some more records (10% or so) and do more work. When crunch time comes and the company has to lay someone off, they are not going to lay off their top performer.

Ute Frey · Answer

"I was fired for automating a job I had once. They took what I had developed, replaced me with an idiot that they showed how to work it, and promptly fired me for "insubordination."  I had taken a business asset that was making them $30 grand a year profit and turned it into a million dollar a year program for the company, and they fired me for it to save ~30 grand a year on my salary. Job creators my ass "

Lena Weisz · Answer

No, it's not unethical or illegal. They are paying for her work, not for her time.

Knif · Answer

I am going to disagree with the top post and agree with the rest. Delete this submission and don't shake the tree. She's got a sweet gig. I wish I could get a job that I did at home and made a decent living.

Maria Weiss · Answer

No, it is neither unethical or illegal. You've found a way to do her job more efficiently. So long as you don't lie about it if you ever get asked, and so long as the work is getting done properly then there should be no problem.

irem · Answer

It's not unethical, but you aren't thinking big picture enough.  Fine tune your program, copyright it, and then sell it to the company. Charge for the implementation of it, licensing fees, etc and get more than your wife's salary and bennies. Then sell it to other companies as well, with the same licensing fees. Then have your wife still work at home, but instead have her old job, have her doing support for your application when it comes up. (the better of a product you make, the less she'll have to do).

Enne-Liisa · Answer

"I think you're missing the big picture. Have your wife incorporate (woman-owned small businesses get better opportunities). She hires you. You both go to her company and say "fire that whole department and we'll do it all for half the pay." Now you get the equivalent of FOUR salaries and you add another two hours or so to your weekly burden.  EDIT: Depending on the number of employees. Which is what? "

Abigael · Answer

No. Time for her to get a second job I reckon :)

Henna · Answer

Just be sure the program doesn't screw up numbers when it's thrown a curve-ball. The human mind can interpret change and minor discrepancies in a work load with ease, but a computer program will happily spit out the wrong answers all day. This could result in your wife being fired. Double check every job that it does for at least a few weeks to make sure it doesn't screw her out of a job altogether.

cilie · Answer

I've done this for friends before. You would be surprised at how inefficient some companies can be. Hiring people to just copy and paste all day. My advice is to just keep doing things the way you're doing them and don't try to sell the program or anything like that. It creates a huge hassle and they may just see your program, realize it's possible, and hire some coders in india to rewrite your program for next to nothing and now nobody has a job. Keep it hush hush and enjoy your hobbies on the side.

Manuela Loewe · Answer

sounds to me like you found a glitch in the matrix and you should continue to exploit it until the money runs out.

Antje Schroder · Answer

I do QA testing for a living, automated and manual, and from experience, the only thing to possibly worry about is if she ever has to go back to manually entering/modifying data/whatever it is she does. Having to explain why you aren't as efficient as you previously were kind of sucks when she can't mention the application you made.  I'm all for automation. Upvotes for you.

Klaudia Krueger · Answer

Are they hiring?

Andac · Answer

Not unethical. The company gets the required work done with no errors, thus reducing time spent on error correction. It's actually a bargaining chip in asking for a raise.  You might want to consider licencing out the program but with a caveat. Depending on the line of work, she might be in violation of nondisclosure agreements on the nature of the work.

Melanie Vogt · Answer

Best. Husband. Ever.

Kai · Answer

This is nice, but I think as soon as the company will find out, she'll be fired, so she should get a second job, and have 2 salaries for now, so if she gets fired at the first one, she has a secure place elsewhere.

My wife works from home and I’ve ‘automated’ her job- an ethical question.

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