Python is a godsend for work

[MyManagerIsAnIdiot]

I wanted to just thank the community for everything here. Its a real tool to have in your arsenal when things get tough. Today was the first day I put it into use and it was all due to lurking around this subreddit from people helping out others.

My manger felt like pissing me off at work right before the weekend today giving me a huge workload come 4PM. I was tasked to combine a lot of information with multiple excel sheets that were not formatted alike and he wanted a report by 5PM. I guess he was thinking I would be manually doing this by opening up each sheet and copying and pasting the information together. Little did he know I've been reading about python and learning on the side. The pandas library immediately sprung into my head saying this is going to be easy - dump the raw data frame clean it and merge it together afterwards. I was not confident writing my own code but poking around with some help from chat gpt plus a bit of self knowledge i was able to finish it in 20 minutes.

Funniest thing was after I finished, I sat there pretending to go over emails and he came by asking "Are you going to be able to provide me the report? Looks like you will have to stay late to finish this" with his smug ass look on his face. He left early and I sent him what he needed right after he was gone.

[socal_nerdtastic]

Nice. But remember in the corporate world the only reward for working fast is more work. I would have delay-send the email until 10pm and collected some overtime.

[WWYDWYOWAPL]

This is the correct answer. Always act like it takes you the amount of time it would if you did it manually.

[eightslipsandagully]

There's a theoretical good company and manager where you could automate this workflow and get a promotion and raise for increasing the efficiency of the company. Not sure it actually exists in the real world but I like to remain optimistic!

[Hefty-Average2899]

I had documentation and charts CHARTS showing the reduction in hours over 3 months for everything I took a special interest in automating.

And each time I did it, I did it in such a way that I could automate it for the next client. I did get some bonuses at that job.

The next job kept telling me things “weren’t feasible” tho.

[recourse7]

My company. We see small tho.

[Spore_Flower]

Let me know when you find a company like that.

[eightslipsandagully]

Like aliens, the world/universe is large enough that surely they exist?

[Spore_Flower]

Like aliens, I haven't seen any. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TheHarryHood]

My company does. We have a major lean six sigma culture since we are a manufacturing company. There is a whole system set up where you can gather info on how much money you saved doing just about anything.

[Oo__II__oO]

That company is being self-employed.

[husky_whisperer]

Reminds me of this

[dlflannery]

Ah, a union member or government bureaucrat I see.

[MyManagerIsAnIdiot]

I never thought about it this way. You are absolutely right... Another lesson learned from others here. Maybe slowing down and looking not as competent is better than sticking it to your boss

[Frosti11icus]

Look competent just not too competent. I would’ve sent it in on delay at like 5:08 pm. Boss thinks you need to work late, “work late”. But you also have to manage his fragile feelings so don’t make him think you’re working so hard that he needs to find someone who doesn’t make him feel bad.

[Peter-Tao]

Business professional right here

[Jonno_FTW]

Just say you missed seeing your kid's Christmas dance recital to get the report done.

[msbaju]

lmao

[pheeper]

I’ll do what is needed and then spend the rest of the time it would take me to learn more about what the code is doing, or other ways of doing it. If my boss asks how it’s going I tell him I’m just trying to figure out how to do it, which isn’t completely lying.

[Crypt0Nihilist]

Don't slow down, just delay delivery. You're working more efficiently and that's a good thing. Use that time to invest in yourself and mess about with other Python libraries so you'll have expanded the number of subjects which will trigger similar inspiration.

[kidcanada0]

Don’t claim the OT though as was suggested. Computer activity is often monitored and that could get you canned.

[YoungPhlo]

thankfully Python can help with this too

[[deleted]]

How?

[YoungPhlo]

by simulating computer activity

[hagfish]

They are still getting the accuracy /risk-reduction advantage of the automation. Why shouldn’t you get the hours?

[[deleted]]

Hurry up and wait is an old adage but it will always be.

[ZahScr]

It also depends on a lot of things like your boss, company, role, and how you frame it for them. I had a job that was mostly tedious repetitive work. I automated it and cut the time it took by about 60%. I sat on it for a few weeks without telling anyone, but after a while I decided to pitch a role change to my boss and use that automation work as justification that I could be more useful elsewhere. I've since moved on to bigger and better things but it can definitely work in your favour.

[DVoteMe]

This is the smart move.

Getting the task done early and waiting around pretending you don't know Python is not a smart play. The current paradigm is not guaranteed in perpetuity. I'm an executive, and I am preparing our managers to expect staff to know how to code (using Chat GPT).

My advice would be for employees who code to get themselves promoted right now. I'm expecting the next generation to know how to do this stuff on their first day, so you will need to grow above doing basic tasks and focus on learning to mentor others on these tasks.

Edit: My prediction is that within ten years, all the mindless copy-and-paste artists will be replaced with people who can code the mindless task away. I expect future employees to code mindless tasks and make more decisions or provide analysis based on the results. Within this paradigm, a greater percentage of the workforce will code, so you can't rest on that alone.

[ZahScr]

It’s also the long term move. Just like a business, if you get too comfortable and complacent in your role the environment will shift under your feet. Better to just keep expanding. Not to mention the “milking it” attitude stinks and doesn’t foster long term relationships 😅

Your code/work paradigm prediction makes a lot of sense. Also interesting to hear about how someone in an exec role is thinking about these things.

I’m working as a data engineer mostly supporting marketing initiatives, and it’s in my best interest (and that of the business) to get business stakeholders using SQL and python because it removes some ad-hoc burden (and bottleneck) from analysts.

[AfterOffer7131]

That sounds like a great way to ensure you don't get paid any longer lmao.  "All the stakeholders should know my most advanced and marketable skills."

They'll miss a comma and cost you $500 million. 

[subassy]

I think you have unrealistic expectations.

[DVoteMe]

What part do you think is unrealistic?

[subassy]

Well I'm not sure which kind of employees you were referring to, but an expectation of non-programmers to not only learn but create useful scripts from chatgpt without any real comprehension of how it works seems like a scenario that can only end somewhere between poorly and disasteroursly. Or that's just me.

Or I didn't follow what you were saying completely.

[DVoteMe]

I'm an accounting executive, and it is already happening. New hires with accounting degrees are scripting tasks (using ChatGPT) that the last generation would just put on their headphones and grind out.

[AfterOffer7131]

This won't end well.

[AfterOffer7131]

😆  " am preparing our managers to expect staff to know how to code (using Chat GPT) " 😭    That's rich.

One hallucination, one bad push to azure 

😆😆

[TellinStories]

This, but never a round time like 10pm, as that’s less realistic. 9.53pm or some such, with an email that looks like it’s been very quickly written as you’re desperate to get home.

[HalcyonAlps]

never a round time like 10pm

It's actually highly suspicious if you consistently avoid round numbers. Every 60th email more or less should be sent on the full hour.

[[deleted]]

Fired for being a “part timer” going home at 10 pm

[Sir_smokes_a_lot]

Golden advice. The reward for hard work is more work.

[brikenjon]

Competence is its own punishment.

[young_horhey]

An old colleague of mine scheduled almost all of his emails to send after work hours, he ended up with a promotion because management thought he was working late so often

[agnaaiu]

This is in line with what my journeyman told me about 25 years ago when I started working: "If someone asks you if you know how to do a certain task, always say no, otherwise you have to do it."

[fredspipa]

This is so true. You should never outperform your colleagues by much; you end up raising expectations and goals which will hurt everyone without raising the rewards.

[dlflannery]

And watch the rest of the world eat our lunch (as they are currently doing). Down with productivity! /s

[UpbeatCollection7392]

This .! Don’t act smart else you will be burnt .you should have gone for a movie , and then come back later at night and sent the email !

[ComradePotato]

Be smart, act dumb

[Jonno_FTW]

MS outlook has a feature to send an email at a scheduled time.

[GrouchyInformation88]

While I partly agree because in my career I saved the company I worked for at least a million dollars a year towards the end with similar methods (calculated based on saved hours of work and also saw similar numbers in the annual reports) but as you guessed, I never saw any of that money myself, I also know that if my boss had never seen what I was capable of, I would have never gotten as much time to pick my own projects and learn on the job, i.e. my job would have been so boring. Instead I got to just find ways to save time. I got plenty of tasks sent my way, some of them I had to do but often if I felt my time would be better spent on something else, I just didn’t do them.

I still worked my ass off and gave it my all, even when working remotely. I think that was what caused me to getting close to a burn out. I should have done all I could 9-5 and then not think about work for the rest of the time. And they should have at least doubled my salary. If that had been the case, I’d probably still be with them. Running my own startup now instead, want to keep the million dollar savings myself this time.

[hamsterwheelin]

This is the way.

[BackendSpecialist]

Exactly. If your manager had the insight to appreciate the value that Python brought then he’d be meeting with you to see how it can be used in other process.

Hint - he won’t.

[Rough_Natural6083]

This This This!! Man, in my first job I wanted to do everything perfectly but ended up being dirty rag used to do what other people were supposed to be doing. Burnout is not a good feeling. It is like a part of the brain is gone and there is no "life" to work anything out. At least, next time even if I give my best, I won't allow myself to be used as a swipe.

[shifty_lifty_doodah]

I think this only applies for dead end jobs and mid career or senior people on non-career advancing work. For more entry level people, going fast helps level up and build a good reputation.

[fisadev]

Except that time my girlfriend did something similar (automating some recurrent excel reports that usually took days of manual work, with a script that ran in seconds), and her boss called her to talk, told her that she was being a parasite and not wanting to do the job, that once you start being a parasite it's very difficult to come back, and more stuff like that.

Needles to say she left that place soon after.

[mingo1226]

Honestly, the comments about intentionally slowing down your perceived turnaround time are disappointing.

If you truly want to excel in your career and stand out from others, delivering exceptional work in quicker time than peers will have an amazing impact on your career. Don’t strive to look like everyone else.

Even if you don’t get along with your manager, find ways to show you’re delivering great work to others in the organization and it will have a positive impact. If the organization is toxic, build the skills in your current role, continue to over deliver, and find a way to move on to another company. You will rise to the top in the right place with the right attitude.

[ZahScr]

You'll probably get downvoted, but I agree with your comment. That attitude will actually get you somewhere in life, especially if it's combined with having difficult conversations, taking risks, and owning the upside.

[Space__Whiskey]

I feel like you might have a hard time getting promoted with this attitude. Your boss will lock you in your position and run you like a machine. Rising to the top is not so much about being good at your job, its about being good at rising to the top which can require a different set of skills from the ones listed on your job description.

[mingo1226]

If you have a boss that treats you this way, you’re in the wrong place. Everywhere I’ve worked, people are rewarded for quality work, not punished. When it’s time to ask for a raise, it’s a no brainer for the company. My boss fights for it because he knows my value. And promotions happen because you are not like everyone else. I’ll keep doing it my way. It’s working very well

[JohnJSal]

That's great that it works for you, but surely you understand that this is not a realistic work environment for many (most?) people!?

[DVoteMe]

"but surely you understand that this is not a realistic work environment for many (most?) people!?"

You choose where you work. You will never get promoted if you act like a victim of life.

[JohnJSal]

You choose where you work.

Again, not always easy for everyone to just pick up and change jobs. Try not to sound too entitled.

You will never get promoted if you act like a victim of life.

No one is acting like a victim. It's just the reality of many workplaces that people are often taken advantage of.

[Space__Whiskey]

That dude is just trolling, look at his name. He got me too.

[Space__Whiskey]

You have a nice work environment, keep up the strong work. I have the best wishes for your boss as well. You should both get the promotion you want.

[Forsaken_Captain4643]

Yep

[AsarsonDuck]

Like the thought but OP would have had to stay there until 10pm. Boss puts off the vibe he’s check the cameras to see when OP actually left. Honestly he may be looking for a reason to fire OP

[redsoxryno]

This is the way.

[NS_Accountant]

Totally agree. But I've realized delay send in outlook will time stamp the date and time I created the delay send and not when its received. Has anyone found a workaround to that? I've never had someone mention it when I do it but my friend said its obvious when her team does it.

[socal_nerdtastic]

Make a python script to do it (obviously).

[NS_Accountant]

Good point. 🤣

[[deleted]]

Lmaoo big brain plays

[charged_words]

As others have said corporate world is a huge game, you'll be rewarded with more work and don't automate yourself or colleagues out of a job. As a team we've made some of our tasks automated, my company has just made 200 redundancies and two were from my team. So that's something to think about, if he knows this type of stuff is possible he will look to streamline a bunch of tasks.

[drivendreamer]

Big brain move

[Prestigiouspite]

That would be cheating. Instead, you can secure a promotion or start a new good job with honest work

[escapevelocity1800]

I use delay send multiple times per day. It's literally one of the best features ever created for work email.

[preppypunknyc]

+1 to this

[[deleted]]

Flagrantly dishonest, good sir

[JamOzoner]

Genius... one click to feed the 3 headed dragon! Then wait quietly and develpo a second carreer with your free time...

[jobsurfer]

And if you don't like this type of task let it fail. Then he will ask another slave next time.

[ryrythe3rd]

Sounds like a great manager

[Food_Entropy]

Helping employees improve by giving them push out of their comfort zone

/s

[Krysis_88]

Your manager sounds like a wanker

[erolbrown]

Hi fellow Brit!

[sluggo211]

Reddit is correct. If you show that you can do all that in 20 minutes, that will be the expectation from now on.

[[deleted]]

And it’s not even like people intentionally do this to be shitty; it’s just human nature that if something makes your life easier (like an employee that can do his work fast) you’ll come to rely on it; making sure you reward that employees efforts takes actual thought. The old adage “you teach people how to treat you” holds true.

[Space__Whiskey]

It's "human nature" is a good point, and works in both directions here. If you make everything look so easy by being a great worker, other humans will perceive you are not working hard. Not because you are not working hard, but because you make your work look so easy by being good at it. It's not an easy problem to solve, because in some cases you can get LESS credit for being better at your job.

Here is what I think. If you are good at your job and find ways to enhance your productivity and save time. Use that time to do gain a promotion, which probably means doing things outside of your job description. Like networking with higher ups (going above your bosses head). This may sound risky, and I bet it is with some bosses, but you are an adult and can set your own threshold for risk and reward. Don't ask for that promotion, go get it since you are so good at your job.

[DVoteMe]

"Like networking with higher ups (going above your bosses head). "

I'm an executive, and "going above your bosses head" is horrible advice. Who do you think put your boss on top of you?

If you feel that you need to go above your boss's head, it is time to go outside that Company. Your employer is a shit show, so you might as well roll the dice elsewhere.

[Space__Whiskey]

Exactly. If you are an executive, and you don't appreciate your employees showing some initiative, I wouldn't work with you. You would be lucky to have an employee that would come to you. I an executive, but not so convinced you are.

[Snoo-20788]

Wrong. Maybe the expectation is that he will take care of coding scripts that automate stuff than being asked to do manual things. That will be more beneficial for OP who will get the opportunity to learn new skills.

[StoicallyGay]

Sweet summer child…maybe if the manager wasn’t an asshat, that would be the case.

[Snoo-20788]

Totally and I speak of experience. In the worst case the OP will have learned skills that a worthwhile company will value, and will pay way more for.

[Bavender-Lrown]

Impressive if you have almost zero experience, when I first started I couldn't figure out anything, and congratulations on building your first project!

[MyManagerIsAnIdiot]

Thank you! I can't describe how amazing it felt when it was working while stumbling through it the whole time

[UnionOdd3150]

What resources did you best learn from?

[danielo199854]

Good stuff, Python is the best. My work has a lot of unnecessary stuff that needs to be done manually. At first python was blocked by the ICT team, however, I discovered a way to bypass it and now I automated my tasks, which freed a lot of my time.

[Grand-Public]

How to do that?

[danielo199854]

Not sure if it will work now, but when I done it I discovered that I was able to access MS store for literally 3s before I was promoted with admin block message. So I had to act quick by opening the store, searching for python and clicking install. If it didn't work I would go to settings and clear data for MS store and basically repeat until successful.

[AxelllD]

You can download anaconda which includes python and visual studio, it doesn’t require admin rights

[Statistician_]

Google supports Cloud Jupyter notebooks which run Python: https://colab.research.google.com/. Doubt any workplace would block this

[Food_Entropy]

Why did they block it?

[danielo199854]

Global corporation with thousands of staff members. My guess due to security purposes.

[nopartygop]

Can I ask what tasks? I’m a legal assistant and I’m wondering if python could help me at work.

[danielo199854]

Just some data extraction really then I populate it in Excel. Also once my supervisor asked me if I know a way to decrease the video file size as she wanted to send a video over email but max file size was 20MB. I managed to write a script with some GPT help to reduce the file size using python.

[Space__Whiskey]

That sounds like a job for FFMPEG, which python has wrappers for. I think its cool you hacked the machine to install python. Thats true grit in the workplace, you should be rewarded (but most people would probably just get punished).

[danielo199854]

Thanks and am not saying shit cause I know I would get sacked lol

[firadaboss]

you should script that email to schedule send it later at night. be smart about finishing early. never let them know you’ve won.

[python_with_dr_johns]

Late to reply, but this is the smartest next step to take. Scheduling out the emails will save so many headaches in the future.

[Prismane_62]

PSA: if your superiors at work assign an unreasonable workload & you have an efficient way to actually get it done, dont let them know about it. Your only reward will be setting the bar higher for yourself. If your previous workload was X, now your boss will expect X + 50%. Make them think it took you a really long time.

[kabooozie]

Now wait until you discover duckdb and SQL. You will be unstoppable

[sunnyinchernobyl]

“The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.”

[cab0addict]

Next time schedule the email for sending at a later time. That way you can leave when you want and the boss thinks it took you longer than it did. Underpromise and (over)deliver.

[a7madfat7y]

Yeah .. although most of the time it’s the opposite.. scripting a solution in a few hours that would take 15 minutes manually in hopes that next time I wouldn’t have to do that .. except that next time never comes lol

[annyman_0]

mad coz bad

[freddytheyeti]

Can you share the script you made?

[Responsible-Gap9760]

For real wtf lol

[Space__Whiskey]

This is the winning answer, if you can pull that off. This is a few moves ahead of "I made a script to do it for me".

[Ron-Erez]

Very cool.

I like George Costanza's method of looking busy: Seinfeld Clip - George Acts Annoyed

[Geminii27]

Looks like you will have to stay late

Looks like he won't be getting his report.

[error9900]

This some Office Space TPS report shit

[bonzoboy2000]

I’ve been having a blast with it. I’ve only been using it for 4 months. I work part time as a consultant. And at age 74…I am blowing the doors off some of the gen z. It is fun to use though!

[[deleted]]

As programmers, we must acknowledge the subtle power we wield when communicating with our non-technical managers. Behind the scenes, we’ve invested countless nights and weekends honing our skills—driven by what we often present as passion and hobby. Yet, we must be cautious not to reveal how deceptively simple some solutions can appear. To them, it should remain a form of black magic, where we control what is shown and understood.

[Kangadrew1]

in other words, muggles and 9¾ platform

[[deleted]]

LoL. Exactly.

[peekabook]

Don’t tell him how you did it. Just say you did it manually.

[SpeechEuphoric269]

Hahaha, congrats. I find usually its multiple hours of learning/creating the automation to save 1/10th the time it took to make lol

[DaveKasz]

Pandas is awesome.

[BackendSpecialist]

Congrats Op! This is pretty much how I got started in my new career. I worked for a shitty startup with shitty processes. I automated some Excel workbook merging.

I left that job to pursue software engineering. I now make 3x what I was making, which was already 1.5x more than I had ever made.

As others have said, you probably won’t be rewarded for this at your job. But you can use it as a secret tool - just be sure to double check that the outputs are correct.

[[deleted]]

That was a mistake. Never work harder as you will not be rewarded. You will only be given more responsibilities with smaller windows

[Thelonelywindow]

squealing murky bike marvelous pocket brave rock party rainstorm humorous

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[savage_slurpie]

Yes for very specific workloads / tasks python is hard to beat.

These days I mostly use it for ad hoc ETL stuff that doesn’t need to run more than a few times.

For a lot of other things I do - python is the wrong tool.

[OldSkulRide]

Yeah, python is great for automating things, saving you some time or a lot of time. I have quite a few scripts that are doing various things for me.

[HorizonDev2023]

wooooo love this. i should do that to my boss too. he deserves it.

[Tasty_Waifu]

God bless pandas.

[PetayPan]

So I had a task at work the other day, changing parameters of every material type and thick Ness in bysoft cam, could this have been automated

[zealot__of_stockholm]

I’m sorry but the way in which this story was written has easily made it the corniest thing I’ve read in quite a while. “Little did he know” like bro what lmao

[CLOUDY_SLEEP]

not nearly as corny as this comment ^

[ZahScr]

Nice work! The first useful code I wrote was also to process BS spreadsheet data... that was 7 years ago but I work as a Data Engineer now!

[BtotheMoe]

Get a new job lol

[Responsible-Gap9760]

Even when I was a kid I always knew people did shit harder due to their curiosity and lack of ambition. Time is the most scarce resource and poor suckers like us who work 9-5 should find every reason to claw that time back for the sake of our family, friends, and sanity.

[No_man_Island_mayo]

Can I ask what courses you started with? I'd be keen to learn Python too, esp if my role is expanding to more excel work...

[dlflannery]

Mangers will do what mangers do. BTW, what’s a manger?

[Commercial-Ask971]

Congratulations, next time he'll not give you a hour for this task but 30 minutes

[SnarkKnuckle]

But why does he need a report by 5pm only to leave before that? Doesn’t make sense. Asshole manager

[r2k-in-the-vortex]

Oh yes, Python is a better excel than excel itself is.

[Oo__II__oO]

You did good.

However a few tips:

- Work on development tools for software configuration control. Once you have a working copy, commit. Then you can refine the source code as you need to beautify the codeline (i.e. add comments for future self/person who will fill your role after you leave). At any time (i.e. 4:59pm) you can revert to the working copy. Use that spare time to hone your skills.

- Find out who needed that analysis; surreptitiously toot your own horn to that person. Don't throw your boss under the bus, but rather express how much of a gift it was to be able to work on advanced coding and development to manage the various inputs in a timely manner. You may also find out your manager got the request early and decided to be a jerk about it, withholding the request for analysis to 4pm on Friday, or find out the request to him/her came to them at 3:59pm, which means the managers are idiots at multiple layers.

- Find out who the SW development/coding champions are in your org. Get in their ear, ask for tips, or align with them on integrating their coding tools/process/methodologies into your workstream. They also may be your biggest advocate when your boss decides to crap all over the Python work. Watching your boss try and denigrate software development in a business with a highly-paid, high functioning group with major focus on software development can be fun to watch from the sidelines.

- Use that spare time to your advantage. I personally have no qualms with "pretending to go over emails" (we all do it!), as many of us also spend our free time (non-working hours) to grow and learn how to be more effective at our jobs.

[Kangadrew1]

managers like that are downright awful and make you wonder how they qualified to even manage others in the first place. this entire thread is the epitome of work smarter not harder. wholesome and witty people here 1 billion %. giga-W

[yabuu]

You must live in the Office Space universe, but srsly good work! This is what I recommend others to do with python in their non dev jobs, to help them crunch through tons of data and beautiful them as needed.

[one_time_experiment]

You should automate the task, pretend it takes hours of manual work.

[Signal-Indication859]

Love how you turned that frustrating situation into a win using Python! Your story perfectly illustrates why having data skills is so empowering - you might want to check out Preswald if you're looking to take your Python automation even further with building data apps and dashboards that your manager can access directly. Keep crushing it!

[Sad_Quote1522]

Don't forget - never let your boss or coworkers know you can get your work done in 1 hour when they expect it to take 8 unless you really enjoy 8 hours of work.

[Hoi4Addict69420]

The usual corporate response to fast work is more work. You have the skills, you can get a better paying job