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Bill Gates said, "I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." What's a real-life example of this? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I was working as a stockboy in a supermarket and when we had to fill the milk cooler people would bust open a 12 pack of milk cartons and put them in one by one.

On my first day I just placed the 12 pack in the cooler and cut the plastic off on one side with my box cutter and yanked it from under it and the look of the store manager and the other employee who was training me was pure bewilderment.

From that day everyone did it my way.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

In a 200 person company, I made friends with some peeps in the marketing department.

Yep, their workflows have tons of automation potential. They are definitely doing hours of work that can be done in minutes. Companies really should have rotations where a dev just sits and watches sales and marketing do any data input work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I have to enter data into payroll for when a teacher covers a class for an absent teacher. Usually, there are 5 teachers who I pay for one hour each. Each teacher has an ID number.

To pay one teacher I have to enter their ID number. Select their job code from a drop down list, tell the database I am adding to it by choosing or entering A in a box. Then I have to pull the date from a drop down list. Then I enter the digit 1 (to pay 1 hour). Then I enter the ID number of the absent teacher. Then I enter the sub request number created by the absent teacher. Then I click "change."

I have to do this for all 5 teachers that covered the class. One-at-an-effing-time.

If I had a "dev" handy, I would say, let me enter the ID, date, and job number for the absent teacher. Let me list the 5 substituting teacher id numbers, and the 1 hour should be the default.

Of course there will never be a 'dev' around because my county purchased the payroll software and no one who is anywhere near using it gets to make the purchasing decisions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@killick Whoever designed that software went on to work on Blackboard, I swear.

@inkican @TehSr0c @Noumena

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Lol, I haven't heard of the dreaded Blackboard in forever. What a boomerang of stress 😀

@killick, if this is a website you can automate this yourself by creating a csv of that data schema you want and then use Selenium to auto-fill and submit that web form. Automated UI testers use Selinum for testing, but it doesn't have to be just a test. Selenium shoud be free to run.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I will look at that, but I am not sure it would work smoothly. The interface requires me to "Inquire" after two of the steps.