Ask HN: How bad is it to outsource my own job? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How bad is it to outsource my own job?

2 pointspilom2 comments

Work for a fortune 100 Company, and I have recently been assigned grunt research work which I could have done my freshman year of college. I'm actively looking for other options within the company (I like the salary and benefits I just want more meaningful work).

I'm tempted to outsource parts of my work to a personal assistant overseas (so I have time to keep searching elsewhere in the company or work on my own projects) but I'm curious what the consequences could be. I'm not releasing company information, but I still feel like it wouldn't be good if my manager found out.

How bad would it look assuming I'm still getting my job done and the work is good quality?

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It sounds like you know exactly how bad it would look! I agree that if your manager found out, it would look terrible. That said, would he (could he) find out? Obviously you'd be reviewing and probably editing everything before "handing it in," so it seems unlikely. If you're confident that there's no confidential information, you probably wouldn't be fired over it, if he did find out. But it would look really bad and have you doing a lot of backpedaling. And maybe you'd feel bad about it.

Or maybe you'd have lots of free time, he'd never find out, and everything would be hunky-dory. And you'd be helping out somebody overseas with some money.

grunt research work which I could have done my freshman year of college

If it's just research, there shouldn't be a problem with outsourcing it, whether you tell your boss or not. I would think that your boss would want you to get the project done in the most efficient way possible, and if outsourcing is the most efficient way to do it, why wouldn't you do it. As an example, at a previous job I was assigned the task of doing a cost/benefits analysis for switching our office phones (20 extensions) from a regular PBX to VoIP using RingCentral and Angel.com. I could have spend a few business days doing it, but instead I farmed it out to an MBA in India I found on Elance. It took him 4 hours at $12/hour and my bosses (who all had MBAs) were very impressed. Of course I fessed up immediately, and they were even more impressed that I didn't waste 3 business days doing it myself (at a cost of $250/day). It's just smart business.

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