The pandemic has forced many companies and employees to review the way they work. This computer scientist, working from home since the start of the health crisis, has automated his professional tasks: he only works ten minutes a day, while enjoying life… and his full salary! Explanations.
The trick described by this user of Reddit, Throwaway59724, unfortunately cannot apply to all employees, but it is an interesting example that might give some ideas! Employed by a small law firm as an IT manager, his job is to ensure the authenticity of the firm’s digital documents stored in a cloud.
Automation does all the work
In court, this authentication is essential because it must be ensured that the documents, which serve as evidence in court, have not been manipulated. Nevertheless, this task is very far from representing 8 hours of work per day. Throwaway59724 therefore had to pretend to work for a good part of the day. When the Covid hit, he was offered to switch to teleworking.
In a week, he wrote and perfected a script that does all of his work. This script scans the documents on the firm’s hard drive, generates the hash information, transfers it to the cloud and then generates the hash data once more to ensure its accuracy. The law firm retrieves thousands of digital documents (photos, files, etc.) every day, which are first stored locally.
This requires the IT specialist regarding ten minutes of work each day, in the morning and in the evening, to ensure that everything is going well. The rest of the time, he plays video games or lives his own life. All for $90,000 a year! As he explains, he doesn’t feel guilty regarding anything, he’s doing the job his employer asked him to do…” I convinced myself that as long as everyone is happy, there’s nothing wrong ».
What if he ever got fired? His script runs on a computer that belongs to him: if the firm fires him, he will have to manage without his system.
