Workplace improvements don’t always lead to happy endings.

The following story involves an employee who upgraded outdated workstations in the office.

The new machines worked really fast and reduced the backlog quickly.

But while the workload decreased, so did the number of people doing manual work.

Let’s take a closer look!

That time I helped automate 20 people out of a job

Since the day I started at this small company, I noticed their workstations were horribly out of date.

They were also reaching end of life for support and depreciation.

I worked with a developer to get our in-house software to run on new machines with much more CPU and GPU to run everything.

This IT officer’s goal was to avoid being backed into obsolescence.

This was only in an effort to prevent or avoid being backed into obsolescence.

The development team saw an opportunity to optimize the application.

Fast forward about a year when the project is complete and the application can now finish its processing in 10 to 40 times less time depending on difficulty.

The new systems worked efficiently.

We have everyone on new systems that run like a dream, and everyone is thrilled with how much more we can do in a day.

The department head sends a wonderful email about the new time it takes to process.

The backlog of work is now quickly shrinking for this team.

Their department head has to stop calling in per-diem workers.

It reached a point when they had to lay off 20 employees.

Slowly, we fire employees as there is not enough work for them.

Fast forward another year and we have fired some 20 people.

That is about 27 percent of our company.

I was friends with many of them. I still feel bad five years later.

Let’s find out what others have to say about this on Reddit.

Don’t blame yourself, says this person.

Here’s a similar thought.

This user gives their personal opinion.

Another IT person speaks up.

Finally, here’s another valid point.

That’s why technology is sometimes considered the enemy.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.