[reacharavindh]

At my current job, I saw a lab technician work manually with Excel sheets entering sample IDs and then using a website where he'd copy/paste the sample ID into to get a bar code, and then print it out to stick on the box.

I wrote a Python script that uses openpyxl module to read His Excel docs, and report lab module to generate bar codes in a PDF document with appropriate spacers so that he can simply print it out, and stick them in boxes.

He is happy and so am I that I could save his time. It only took me 20 mins to write this script.

[thedevindevops]

There genuinely needs to be more of this sort of thing.

The overall 'productionisation' of our industry has led us into a cookie cutter style of work and away from genuine problem solving like that. Ironically that sort of productivity boosting work has been wrapped up in a nonsense 'process automation consultant' role that is inflated beyond sense and often dismissed by the receiving company as an unnecessary expense.