Reply to post: Re: Automation does have its place

Re: Automation does have its place

I can understand how that happens. Often, especially in the likes of schools and other very important yet poorly funded organisations, the person who shows a little sense of computer knowledge (eg knows that a computer is some sort of box) is placed in charge of such things, often without training (especially back in the 80's and 90's, dunno about these days).

Over time they learn little tricks to help maintain things, but they lack the time (and sometimes permission) to do any further training or improvements. I've been there myself, maintaining a system for a decade over and above my normal work (which, BTW, was a full-time job!). Least the firm paid time+.5 for the first extra hour and time*2 after that. I got a decent income but 0 social life.

Then the new guy comes along. He'd spent more time in computer training than I'd ever considered, and was able to automate a lot of stuff in ways I'd never considered.

For a long while things were great. Then, as with another post below, a large portion of the users disappears overnight. A glitch in one of his batch files took out stuff due to an unforeseen combination of events. It took out a lot of stuff. First I knew about it was the phone call from the 2nd shift supervisor, the call to come in and fix. Long night but got it sorted.

I did come to his defense at a later managerial meeting. I pointed out that while his mistake had cost a considerable amount in lost productivity, his automations had saved more than that in the preceding months, and we were actually able to pitch a strong case for improving the IT training of staff. If the company had given me the training I'd asked for earlier...

A guy who has the resources and training to patch together what bits he can as he goes is not to blame for the system he leaves behind, unless he is offered the opportunity to improve things and doesn't take it. What works gets you through the day. What's new may not work so well, and may not get you through several days (or it may save a few hundred overtime hours a year and pay for itself in a couple of weeks...)