r/careerguidance • u/Claptrap_5Z • 18h ago

Management is cutting my job after I automated 15 hours of weekly work, do I have to document it for them?

When I took this coordinator job, our team was losing fifteen to twenty hours every week just updating client logs and manually formatting spreadsheets.

I built a few simple macros and formula templates that cut all that data entry down to an hour. I thought saving twenty hours a week would free me up for higher-level projects.

instead, my manager called me into a meeting last Friday. She told me that because our administrative workload dropped, they are merging my role with a part-time position and letting me go. To get my severance check, they want me to write step-by-step documentation for every macro I set up.

I literally worked myself out of a salary. I should of just kept doing the data entry by hand like the last person.

Do I ACTUALLY have to document processes I created that were not in my original job description?

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u/Relevant-Energy-5886 18h ago

They should answer the first text.

"Hey glad to hear from you! Im consulting now. My rate is '20xPreviousHourlyRate', let me know if you want to discuss contracting a block of hours."

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u/Due_Cherry_1423 18h ago

And I require a one time $10,000 sign up fee.

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u/lvlwonninja 18h ago

And a yearly subscription of “2x my previous pay”

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u/redhawkdrone 17h ago

This is just piss poor and childish advice because it will never happen. You can ask for 3x to 5x of your base rate and maybe a minimum of a handful of hours just to keep it from turning into 30 minutes of billable time. 99.999999% of work can be done by someone else for less than $100-$200 per hour.

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u/Due_Cherry_1423 17h ago

Then use the remaining time to make it hard as hell to fix.

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u/venturous1 17h ago

This is a great answer. You could seriously package what you just did for them as a product and sell it to others. It’s a little tough getting started as a contractor, but it can be a great life, sometimes more hustle than you wanna put out there, but so much freedom.

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u/hiraeth555 17h ago

You can get taken to court for this exact thing

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u/Western_End_2223 16h ago

If the OP did the work on company time or company equipment, the code belongs to the employer.