--- title: Where Did the Productivity Gains Go? | daily.dev description: A personal essay recounts a data-entry job at a non-profit where the author automated a slow manual workflow (email attachments, Excel/Word forms, FileMaker... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Where Did the Productivity Gains Go? | daily.dev og:description: A personal essay recounts a data-entry job at a non-profit where the author automated a slow manual workflow (email attachments, Excel/Word forms, FileMaker... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/l8qnLAgSA.png og:image:alt: Where Did the Productivity Gains Go? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Where Did the Productivity Gains Go? **[Ibrahim Diallo](https://daily.dev/sources/idiallo)** · 4 min read · 11 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary A personal essay recounts a data-entry job at a non-profit where the author automated a slow manual workflow (email attachments, Excel/Word forms, FileMaker Pro database) to boost output tenfold, only to have that new output level become the expected baseline rather than a reward. The author draws a parallel to managers today using AI to vibe-code apps themselves, noting that the productivity high is real only before the app faces real usage, after which every feature must be added carefully without breaking things. The essay ends with the author being let go once their contribution was normalized, and their untrained replacement failing to match the artificially inflated bar. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@elmarchavez** · 4 upvotes > > **"**Increased output never turns into more free time. Instead, it becomes the new normal.**"** > > History taught us this. What's important is for us to adapt and make sure that the automation is indeed automating correctly. Else, we are back to manual work where the expectation ceiling is a lot higher. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Job That Was Never There](https://daily.dev/posts/the-job-that-was-never-there-jroafh23i) · SQL Authority · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [My productivity improved when I stopped treating AI as the answer to everything](https://daily.dev/posts/my-productivity-improved-when-i-stopped-treating-ai-as-the-answer-to-everything-2yniwqcat) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees. AI could be the exception: this\+that](https://daily.dev/posts/most-tech-revolutions-made-work-worse-for-employees-ai-could-be-the-exception-this-that-wuodlsdeg) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Where Did the Productivity Gains Go?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa"},"datePublished":"2026-08-12T12:03:16.890Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:16:57.050Z","description":"A personal essay recounts a data-entry job at a non-profit where the author automated a slow manual workflow (email attachments, Excel/Word forms, FileMaker...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--CxzD6vbw--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2005","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--CxzD6vbw--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2005","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Ibrahim Diallo","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Ibrahim Diallo","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--UBuPzW64--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774960037/logos/idiallo?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/idiallo"},"commentCount":1,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":11},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}],"keywords":"career,productivity,leadership,vibe-coding","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ibrahim Diallo","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/idiallo"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Where Did the Productivity Gains Go?"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/where-did-the-productivity-gains-go--l8qnlagsa","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"“Increased output never turns into more free time. 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