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

[u/Claptrap_5Z]

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?

[u/Latter-Safety1055]

Be sure to put in a bunch of graphs, charts, and tables that have a lot of different lines looking like spaghetti. It can add aesthetic to the whole thing without telling you a whole lot. Not to mention any sort of Obsidian-style graph of interconnected, breathing nodes that you can interact with.

[u/cooking_question → u/Latter-Safety1055]

Make all graphs unlabeled but require a legend and should use only different shades of blue.Legend should be as small as possible.

[u/ITstaph → u/cooking_question]

Also, on a few graphs just paste the image not loading picture instead of the graph.

[u/cooking_question → u/ITstaph]

You and I should be friends. Imagine if we worked together? 

So far my suggestions:

Written at 16+ grade level

Don’t define terms

Throw in some Latin phrases, e.g. Data in receptaculum importare

Explain everything twice but two different sentences with all kinds of jargon like asynchronous agreement of data inputs to further alignment of function protocols.

If spreadsheets are in Excel, use formulas from Google sheets, vice versa.

Tiny table of contents.

Extensive index of words you would never look up like function, cell, row, data, etc. 

Print it out on paper and put it in a Hello Kitty binder. Delete all traces of the digital copy.

Include charts but all the graphs are in different shades of blue, no labels and tiny legend at the bottom. Charts do not correlate to section where they are pasted and are in no particular order.

[u/ITstaph → u/cooking_question]

Use acronyms but never explain what they mean.

For all charts just put (see figure a-1 in appendix I).

Do not label the separate appendixes and do not label the charts or if you do label them put them out of order. Instead of a1, a-2, a-3 make it a-1, b-1, c-1.

Appendixes are printed out and stored in a separate size/color/style binders. Think 3 hole binder for one, 2 hole top bound zip portfolio for the other.

Print some on letter size paper, some on legal size paper, and a couple on folded ledger (11x17) but have multiple pages printed on it.

Duplex every third page. Make sure the rotation is opposite the binding method.

Do not label the binders.

Any hand written notes are made with pilot ball frixion pens, these erase with heat caused by friction and can also degrade if left in direct sunlight or a hot car.

[u/Oliver_the_chimp → u/ITstaph]

Indicate connections between relevant parts of the document with hand-drawn lines in red pencil.

Refer to external reference documents using long urls (with ad parameters) in printed document.

Accidentally include references/sources page from wrong document, which is a guide to arcane uses of psychedelic drugs.

Include a very serious About the Author page at the end, which highlights your expertise as an academic.

[u/nursingintheshadows → u/Oliver_the_chimp]

Not a tech type girl at all, but could you put in hyperlinks? Like not on a digital copy that works but only on the printed document. (I’d not supply a digital copy). Not sure if it could be done, but if they manually type in the hyperlink, maybe have it go to the Never Gonna Give You Up song. It might be the ultimate Rick Roll.

[u/Own-Salamander-4975 → u/nursingintheshadows]

Make sure it’s a reaaaally long and cumbersome URL for them to hand-type in too — until they finally finish it and reach their destination of Never Gonna Give You Up.

[u/_Phail_ → u/nursingintheshadows]

I read about a paper/essay/some form of document that was submitted to... idk, somewhere, yeeeears ago... The first word on each line was the lyrics to NEver Gonna Give You Up 😂

[u/DisposableSaviour → u/ITstaph]

That one gets a legible legend.

[u/Warm_Sandwich5038 → u/cooking_question]

Password protect the legend sheet with a ALT8203 zero width space

[u/hightrix → u/Latter-Safety1055]

Chefs Kiss - this is a beautiful addition and would really add to the AI slop feel.

[u/Biodiversity1001 → u/Latter-Safety1055]

and make sure to leave off what the ..brain cramp, whatever the axis represent. Like the government graphs.

[u/EmperorGeek → u/Latter-Safety1055]

You need to leave a few “This Page Left Intentionally Blank” for nostalgic reasons.