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/EvidenceHistorical55 15h ago
Maybe, maybe not, but they could do that if you wrote unsecured and difficult to follow instructions yourself.
Difference is now you didn't waste all the time to do it yourself.
But a simple "hey I wrote all this code and created these templates and they laid me off for all the time saved. Now to get my severance check they want me to write detailed documentation for it. But I'm pissed that them so do it for me and make it hard to follow if you don't already know and understand the code." prompt with the attached files and you've saved yourself all the time and effort.
Be extra petty and pass it bath and forth between a couple chats or models till the instructions the model pops out in its "simplify this" instruction is actively inaccurate. If they were smart they'd then ignore the instructions entirely and put the original code in, but that assumes they are smart which seems inaccurate.