It’s completely accepted when CEOs and other executives serve on multiple boards or even run more than one company. Companies demanding 100% of any employee are just abusing labor and embracing unequal labor practices, and those practices aren’t against any law, companies just make up their own ‘policies’ to try and make their own laws.
They also have no problem when blue collar workers work 2 or even 3 jobs to get by.
Because we aren’t people, we’re meat machines. We don’t deserve a living wage and it’s expected of us to be working every second we’re awake. Do you let your tools rest?
Do you let your tools rest?
I do, better for their long term durability.
looks at his Harbor Freight tools
Yeah, I’m okay with sacrificing longterm durability.
Hmm… Interesting analogy. What about breaking in an engine properly? Would that be considered rest? I have no point with this, I’m just noodling around with the analogy to see how apt it is.
It was more exasperation with how I feel like we’re treated. I mean ffs at my job we have different toilet paper for the “real people” who work in the office and 1ply sandpaper for us barbarians. :/
Not sure about engines, but when you “break in” a horse that doesn’t seem like much of a “rest” for the horse. More so indoctrination or submissive tactics.
Breaking a horse is breaking it’s spirit from what I can tell.
Breaking in an engine you drive it below the suggested RPM limit while the pistons set into their seals, etc.
Couldn’t you just pay them enough so that they don’t need a second job?
The article also quotes
to “cheat” the system
As if people working two jobs are stealing and not working in exchange for proper value of money.
I don’t follow. If you’re claiming you’re putting 40 hours of work in a week, or that is what your contract says, and you’re really only doing 20 because you’re splitting it between two jobs…isn’t that obviously cheating the system?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a shit if people take advantage of a corporation to milk it for cash, but it seems to me to be pretty clearly cheating the system. If you want to get paid on what you produce, and not the time you put in, then you should structure your contracts that I way. I know a lot of my side work I don’t bill hourly precisely because I know it can be done quickly ( for me with experience) but it’s worth more to them.
If you’re salaried, you’re not usually obligated to work a certain number of hours, you’re just obligated to complete tasks on time. If someone holds two salaried positions and works fast enough that they get all obligations for both completed in 40 hours a week, they’re not cheating anyone.
Ive worked many salaried jobs in my life. I’ve never seen a work contract that simply defines your tasks you have to get done. Not saying that it doesn’t happen, but I would be hard pressed to believe it’s common. I don’t even know how you would do that because what tasks I do always shifts, especially in tech. On top of that, how long a task takes is extremely unpredictable. Sometimes I fly through something, sometimes that last 10% takes 90% of the time.
*edit: contract work is very common and definitionally does not define ‘time on the job’, and instead lays out specific metrics of performance related to production. Salaried work is definitely far more common, but to say that’s unusual or impossible is just wrong.
I think this helps elucidate the real issue here, which is the distinction between selling labor and selling your time. One of those is obviously more reasonable and the other shares a conceptual relationship with other types of indentured labor.
It used to be that the distinction didn’t matter since you had to be in a particular place to do a particular work anyway, selling your labor and selling your time looked basically the same and your employer could control and manage how you spent that time. But with remote work, the employer no longer has control over managing your time because they have no (reasonable) way to monitor your production; an employer utilizing monitoring software would (rightly) be seen as an abuse and invasion of privacy. So even though the contract hasn’t changed, people are more aware of how dehumanizing it is not to have sold their labor but control over a certain number of hours of their life.
I obviously have bias here, but I think defining labor by its measure of time is alienating and inhumane.
it definitely happens.
My point is more that salaried employees, by definition, are not required to put in a certain amount of hours. That would make them hourly employees. All salaried employees are required to do is to complete their work by a deadline. What that work is and what the deadline is are usually not defined specifically in their contract, because as you said, both those things constantly change, so it would be impossible to reflect that in some binding agreement.
It’s less about contractual and legalities and more about the feel of the workplace. A lot of places, especially remote jobs, are more laid-back and open-minded than traditional 9-to-5 ass-in-seats old fashioned office jobs.
I manage a decent sized team of salaried people and I am 100% behind this.
If I were to have a criticism it would be of management hiring more people than they really need, not paying good wages, and/or not recognizing when one of their people is ready for a bigger role.
It’s never happened on my team that I know of, but if I were to run into that case and my guy was getting his job done properly then zero fucks would be given.
Do all of your team members finish their work at the same time, or are some slower than others? Do some require more help than others, or take up more than your time managing? Do you just fire the worst performing ones? Does anything change if you find out that the worst performing person has another job he’s doing during the same hours he’s working for you and maybe that’s why he’s performing under his peers?
If I were to have a criticism it would be of management hiring more people than they really need
A lot of companies I’ve worked at have been the opposite 😅 management making do with less by making people work harder to the point of burnout is not very helpful.
Agreed on management not recognizing when one of their people is ready for a bigger role, it’s even worse when the person is performing that role and has expectations of that role but doesn’t have the title or salary bump to show for it.
Oh definitely lots of places under hire, that wasn’t really what I was getting at. I meant if someone is in a full time role at a job and has enough free time to take a whole as other job without any apparent impact on his output, odds are good they have a lot more people on the team than they really need and a good proportion of people’s time gets spent on the illusion of work getting done more so than the substance.
This is how it works where I live from a legal point of view too. If you “show up” (in-person or remote doesn’t matter) to your full-time job and are “available” for work but they don’t have enough for you, legally you must be paid for your full number of hours (your entire salary). You are paid for your time, not your results. You keep your job by delivering good results, however, since that’s a different matter.
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Not sure why you’re down voted but you are right.
I get paid to do 40 hours of work a week and I feel like I’m cheating the system as I definitely don’t work anywhere close to that.
I think people just are comfortable screwing over companies as they will screw you as often as they can so they don’t see it as cheating in this case, but it’s a rare case where the worker gets more out of it than the business.
why do you assume they don’t work their full hours?
Mainly because I’m not naive, but more concretely because i have followed this movement because it interested me when I wanted to make more money.
But even if we want to pretend that all of these people are actually working 80 hour weeks, the article talks about juggling zoom meetings and falls, so it’s clearly talking about some kind of deception at least as to when you are working.
Office workers are productive on average about 3 hours out of an 8 hour workday.
Not sure how that’s an argument that it’s ok to have two jobs. If people can only concentrate on work for 3 out of 8 hours, where are they getting the concentration for another job? More likely that 3 hours get divided to 1.5 to each.
It really depends on the job. For example, security guards need to be present AND vigilant. It’s not reasonable for them to be fooling with spreadsheets on their phone or something. However, a spreadsheet worker is not technically required to sit in their chair 40 hours. They need to get a certain amount of work done. Who cares when they do it? The rub comes when some people think that the spreadsheet job is mandated 40 hours in the chair but it really isn’t. That’s not in the papers you signed. It’s just a “soft expectation” or assumption that management had. If you are completing all the work expected of you during a day, it shouldn’t matter if it took you a full 8 hours or not.
Having said that, someone who only completes what’s given and never contributes extra on their own initiative, or looks for additional ways to be helpful, is not going to be as appreciated. They might not get promoted as fast. But that’s different than cheating.
It really should depend on the role. If part of your job is being available for inbound requests, or participating in group work of some kind, it seems reasonable to expect that during the business day you will be available and not randomly tied up with other commitments. It would be hard to have two such jobs.
If it’s a task completion kind of job then it shouldn’t matter exactly when the tasks get done as long as they get done.
But you should be able to have one “high availablility” job and one “task completion” job at the same time because your tasks can always be set aside if you are needed. Or two task completion jobs, for the same reason.
In all events, the point is being able to perform your job without undue obstacles. If you can do that, and you’re meeting the goals and criteria set for you, nothing else should matter.
Most of these people are over paid actually. Making without stock over 150k and then around the same in RSUs or more.
The issue is many folks were only doing like 3 or 4 hr a day and then double dipped to collect another paycheck because they had the time to. I don’t necessarily fault them.
Friend of mine intentionally took a boring bank job making like 50k less than he was making (so around $125k a yr) so he could coast as a high performer there then planned and did find another gig in Pacific time (were east Coast) and then pulled two checks and still only worked like 42 hr a week.
This is the true reason there making work from home optional.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Huh? If the job can be done this fast and the contract says, you get this money for doing that, why should that be wrong, meaning why should anyone be unhappy?
Except companies are just in for the money and would rather pay you less … Hmmm
All I can say is I agree with you; however, lots of contracts have you agree that you only work for that company while you’re employed by them
Yeah, I think mine has a clause too, that requires me to at least inform my employee
That’s the point of the clause; to fire people who tell them they’re working a second full-time job. When required to be in office everywhere it becomes quite obvious very quickly. They’re upset they can’t tell if you’re two-timing or not if you work from home, so they want to make sure you come in and work for them
Petty tactics from petty people. If someone is doing the job they are paid for, why bother? It’s like the employers are entitled to the 40 hours or something, even if all the work is done.
and the contract says, you get this money for doing that
Almost certainly the contract doesn’t say this tho.
Mine does. But I’m not working manual labor, so it definitely can and will differ I guess
Is that a job you could get away with working 2 at the same time remotely?
Not really, maybe this one and a half time job or sth, I work 4-8 hours a day depending on what’s happening (I work in it)
🎯
It’s management’s own damn fault for trying to use butt time in seats as a proxy for productivity.
No idea why you’re getting down votes.
so they should just sit and stare if they’ve finished their work? don’t be absurd, please. the whole system is way past its due date. our society needs to scrap it and start over. and i mean human society. the world, our species. the one we have now if fast leading us to extinction, along with most of the other creatures on earth. what he says isn’t the way, but it’s better than harassing people for doing more work when they finish their first job.
Are they overpaid, or is every other job underpaid? Seems weird to call them overpaid when the company is making a profit on them anyway.
sad to have to come this far down to see this.
normalizing needing multiple jobs means soon we will be much more overworked…
Why would they ever do that? Only reason they would even consider such thing if if they are forced or if it somehow directly benefits them short-term. Maybe not even short-term because not doing so helps keeping people suppressed and lessens any threats to them.
I mean, yes-ish? My friend has 5 and makes way more than any one job would ever be willing to pay.
More power to him. Is he burning bridges? Probably. Is he banking a ton of money? Yeah. Is anyone getting hurt? Not really, he gets his asks done and that’s that - I’m not about to feel bad for a megacorp grossing hundreds of millions to billions a year.
That smells like BS. No one can work 5 full time jobs and not be committing fraud somehow. Paying someone overseas to do the work, plagiarizing it, submitting the same work to more than 1 of them etc.
Believe what you will, I work multiple myself and could easily pick up more. It’s easy in software engineering at large companies with disorganized practices. I even got “exceeds expectations” at one and a raise recently. I am doing all the work myself, no hiring out. They’re all in very different industries and use different tech platforms, so there is no real copying of work.
Ok, and you’ve never delayed a meeting or communications with 1 company because you were working on another?
No, I wouldn’t feel right. Worst case is I just attend both simultaneously.
If you can do it and not impact anyone at any of those jobs you’re a wizard.
I honestly think I just got lucky with the jobs. Low meetings, rarely overlap, largely autonomous, fully remote.
I could probably make as much or more working one single job at Big Tech and selling my soul, but there is something freeing in making a percentage of that much but spread out / diversified.
If I ever get laid off at one, I probably have others. If an acquisition or reorg happens and I become redundant at one, at least I have the others. Is this whole situation ideal for all? Probably not, but there is a bit of mental comfort and freedom it gives me that I really can’t put a price on.
I love the work I do and the people I work with, I’ll put in a 20+ hour day if I have to, to make sure I hold up my end of the deal - but I’m lucky and I really haven’t had to (yet).
If someone is completing what you ask of them, the ONLY reason anyone would ever care about what they do with their time is ego. But muh underlings! But muh meeting attendees! But muh sense of power!
Dinosaur companies will continue to suffer as they should.
Reminds me of the CEO who said working for a company should be viewed as a team sport and you should not help out another team. All while he is on the board of another company. Can’t remember which CEO it was.
I think it sounds way worse when you distill it.
They want the power to take away your livelihood
If you do everything you need to, are responsive to all communication, participate in group meetings, contribute to the business like everyone else I wouldn’t know you have a second job and therefore wouldn’t care. But this is a fake narrative because it’s impossible to do that for two jobs at once. If it’s not my company it’s the other one that’s being neglected. For certain projects work can be divided evenly, but when there are deadlines some people end up doing more otherwise we miss the deadline. So if one worker is slower the only alternative is fire them and that’s not really something I want to do just because someone isn’t as fast as something if they turn in good work. However if the reason it takes them so long is they are taking other work that’s a completely different story.
Finally someone with authority says it!
Nobody would complain about a freelancer with multiple clients, even at the same time, provided they got their work done on time and on budget. Why isn’t it the same for employees? Why do bosses get to treat them like clients from hell?
I’m not saying they’re justified in this, because frankly if someone is getting their work done, what they do outside of work hours isnt their boss’s business, but I can kinda imagine why a company might not like their employees to have a second job; people only have so much effort to give (consider all those stats people bring up whenever people talk about shortening the workweek, to the effect that working more hours diminishes productivity per hour and gives diminishing or even negative returns compared to fewer hours in many cases) and so a company might decide that an employee with a second job might not be as productive for them as they would be otherwise, due to being exhausted. Though really, if they do it’s honestly the company’s fault for paying so little as for someone to need a second job in the first place.
CEOs and executives do this regularly, so unless their jobs are a lot simpler than they’re claiming the “attention” argument is moot. They pay me to do a thing. I do the thing. They pay me what they’d say they’d pay. That’s it.
Frankly I don’t imagine CEOs and executives take a whole lot of effort, at least for sufficiently large companies (small business are a whole different animal of course). I can’t speak to how complicated it is to do those jobs, or how easy or difficult they are, but the mere fact that people who are so rich as to not need to work at all to live a lavish life, will often still take on jobs like that, speaks volumes I think.
Considering that it is apparently possible to be in charge of like 6 different companies at once and still spend your entire day shitposting on Twitter, corporate fatcats obviously aren’t actually supposed to do anything productive as part of their day-to-day tasks.
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FWIW, Microsoft explicitly allows having multiple jobs. Their policy basically amounts to “don’t cross the streams”.
Their employees doing the absolute minimum would explain some things
I would like it if Microsoft employees would do the absolute minimum. Every time they get an idea we end up with Cortana on desktop or moving the start button.
Really? Brb, getting job at Microsoft…
they aren’t “double dipping.” that phrase means “taking more than you are allowed.” having a second job is just having a second job. the person writing the title either is tone def or doesn’t agree with the article.
The double dipping is referring to doing both jobs simultaneously. Like two remote jobs and you have both work laptops open, so between two jobs you can work 40 hours per week but be paid for 80. It’s distinctly different from clocking in for one job, then clocking out and going to another job and clocking in for that job.
If both sets of 40 hours are meeting goals then the company can shut the fuck up, morally speaking.
You’re basically just criticizing capitalism for being stupid and inefficient, and I 100% agree with you.
But are they? Generally in tech, it’s really hard to gauge people’s performance and most companies are conservative with firing people for performance reasons. So you could coast by on mediocre performance. You team won’t be happy with you, but you probably will keep your job simply because you’re given the benefit of doubt. Tech is one of those areas where someone can actually be 10x as effective as another person, because so much of the job can be spent on stuff like debugging and dealing with weird issues, where one person might spend all day on an issue that another person can resolve in minutes.
There’s also something to be said about the fact that companies are usually paying for your time, not output. Contractors are the ones who are paid for output, not employees. It’s also straight up expected in tech that you’re looking for ways to automate some tasks so they don’t have to be done anymore. It’s not like some mindless office job where you’re expected to do X reports per day. There’s a never ending list of bugs to fix and features requested. You’re generally paid to find ways to increase productivity, not merely do the same thing over and over.
At any rate, tech is usually also paid well enough for it. There’s still massive income disparity between regular workers and C-suite, but at least the pay is always well, well above living wages, stock options are commonly given to regular workers, and high performers often are rewarded for doing better than average. IMO, tech jobs aren’t really an area to focus on the kinda mindset you have, since it does so much better than most (not perfect, but still far better). Most jobs don’t get anything close to what tech jobs offer to regular employees.
I have a buddy working for redacted ultra mega corpo company, he works remote and regularly places 1st in all metrics they measure. He also finishes his whole work day in about 45 minutes. Getting good at your job can 100% mean you’re doing the same amount of work as someone less skilled in half or less the time.
It is quite hard to get fired from a lot of corporate jobs. Mostly because they rely on metrics and don’t actually pay attention to the people. As long as you’re hitting the metrics they have no reason to look any deeper.
It’s kind of depressing that they treat you like that but also sort of relieving.
It’s not just Tech. Two people I work with, One can format a Word document 5x faster. With the logic of some of these people, the slower person should be fired for it? I don’t get it.
What if a compile job takes a long time? Would that be a good reason to context switch?
Are you being honest with your second job that you’re only going to do your job during the stretches of job #1 that require long compile times?
It’s like dating two people but pretending to be monogamous with each. It might work for a bit but at some point you will need to choose one over the other.
at some point you will need to choose one over the other.
Maybe, maybe not. I’ve heard of people doing this stuff for a LONG time.
But it doesn’t matter, does it? If you are forced to choose one over the other, you’ve still made a lot of extra money on all the double-dipped hours you’ve accrued up to that point.
That’s true but that reflects more on how bloated and inefficient the tech sector is. And now the other shoe is dropping with mass layoffs.
The layoffs are a power grab against wage increases. Companies have been reporting record profits for years, inefficient my ass.
If you can do your allotted work in less time you’re just more productive, if a company gave a shit about this they could solve the problem by having a direct compensation increase for work load increase. After all, the employment negotiation happened in the interview. Responsibilities and compensation are already decided upon, it’s insane that you can just be handed more work because you’re too good to do the work they gave you slow enough. If the workers actually had power in the negotiation like free market morons think they do, they’d be able to adjust their own salary when the employer adjusts their workload. Since they can’t, the balance of power is obviously squarely in the employers court.
Want them to do more? Pay them more and then give them more responsibilities. It’s so easy to solve, but companies think they can just extract more effort for the same dollar they agreed upon when the employee was hired. Ludicrous.
Want them to do more? Pay them more and then give them more responsibilities.
The article cites tech workers double-dipping on $250,000 salaries. It’s clearly not about not getting paid enough.
It’s like dating two people but pretending to be monogamous with each.
That’s a great analogy.
If you’re getting the work done you’re getting the work done.
Bottom line is that companies don’t pay you for being more productive, so you have to pay yourself by working two at the same time and getting both done. If you fail to perform, sure, get fired. As long as the product is there, it’s just a worker ensuring they are getting the money they deserve for their production capacity.
The company is paying you for your time, therefore that time is theirs. If you have two companies paying for the same 40 hours, whose time is it and which gets priority when there is an urgent matter? You’re stealing the time resource that they’re paying for if you’re double dipping. It’s greedy and unethical.
If you want to be paid for your production capacity, go independent and pick up jobs where they pay you on job completion.
It’s absolutely insane to me how many people think this is ok. I don’t know if it’s just the particular demographic of Lemmy or not, but god damn. People like that are in for a rude awakening when their jobs are outsourced. Because if companies are going to deal with people working two jobs at the same time, why not pay a fraction for it and deal with it in India.
I work in automation. We’ve had a few customers who wanted to keep employing people from their local area; trying to help the community and all that. Each of these customers had gotten back to us after some time because ‘F these people. They act like they don’t want to work and are a pain in the ass’. Long story short, we automated their jobs and they were given their final paycheck.
I can only assume these people who are double dipping are doing the bare minimum for each job, otherwise how can they do two jobs in the same time period. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day their employers get tired of their antics and removed their jobs.
Unless you are hourly, they are paying you for your work. Salary does not mean you work a consistent 40 hours. Some salary positions require more than 40 hours to do and some are highly variable. It does not seem like you have had any jobs with measurable KPIs.
So if they’re paying you for your work, I assume you can come and go as you please then. No need to be at work during specific hours of the day.
I’ve always worked for small companies where I’m working directly with the owner of the business most days. I don’t need KPIs because the owner can see my performance on a daily basis.
Yeah but the alternative is that I spend the rest of the time on on here. If the company aren’t keeping me busy that’s their problem
The real question is why do people need 2 jobs? If its just ambition or wtv then ok, but if its out of the need to pay the bills and just get by, why is it happening? Or course its convenient for this mfers to say that. Better have people working multiple jobs to get by and keep their mouth shut then having them rebeling, joinin unions, protesting and so on.
He is specifically talking about people who are able to work from home who are generally employed full time. However he does point to workers who absolutely need to work two jobs to make ends meet as a reason why it should be viewed as okay. That is definitely problematic. Those people working two jobs just to live would definitely prefer to work just one.
I have a job where the unspoken agreement is they under pay you but you get to underwork proportionally to your favor. I’m more ambitious so I spend the free time on more work. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is more of a benefit to software people than most workers
They underpay you knowing you won’t work as hard for them? I don’t understand business owners.
Lol it’s the government. But to be honest, it’s a pretty good deal. If you’re not ambitious, you have an easy safe cushy life. If you are ambitious, you have time and security to try things your way
The type of worker that article is talking about don’t. They are making $250,000 per job. People making too little to live off largely don’t have jobs that you would lie about working 2 at the same time.
double dipper
I wanna laser focus in on this phrase in particular because I think it’s bullshit. No one is double dipping, no one’s getting paid twice to do one job. You do a job, it’s to the satisfaction of your employer, they pay you. That is and has always been the deal. If I can do two jobs to the satisfaction of two employers I deserve and am entitled to two paychecks.
Yeah but employers want to be the only party who can have their cake and eat it by giving one person the work of three people and calling them ‘cross-trained.’
The way employers work. There is no such thing as satisfied. By definition they want every single ounce of your existence to be spent on their enrichment. I’m pretty certain salaries were invented as a mental wedge to expect more and more for the same money.
I think there are two different scenarios being conflated here. Having two jobs where you work 1, then work the other is overall fine. The issue is when you have two jobs that you work during the same time, in other words you work for both companies from 9-5 unbeknownst to those employers. If you’d like to do that you need to be an independent contractor or form your own company and do contracted work where the terms are entirely different between you and the company you do work for.
If you’re getting the work done for both jobs, what’s the problem? If they want to double your workload, they can pay you double.
If I have to wait for you to do something to do part of my job, and the reason I have to wait is you have another job, then that’s a problem. The vast majority of salaried jobs involve collaboration.
Then hire more people? Never heard a complaint when a CEO manages multiple companies.
This argument is dumb. End of the day people are free to do as they like. So are employers. If both parties are satisfied with the work getting done then end of story.
Are you serious? I’m talking about an Employer that isn’t ok with it.
Then there is normal recourse. Derr.
But you would rather the employers have some sort of special rights, huh?
What in the hell are you on about? They can just fire you for cause.
Im not conflating anything. A job is an expectation of work to be done for a wage. I do the work, I get the wage. If the expectation is outlined at the beginning as the job monopolizing my time and me doing whatever work comes along when I’m on the clock, then that’s the job I took and I need to be available to them. But in a lot of jobs the expectation is just to meet certain targets of work to be completed. If I meet those targets, the employer owes me the agreed upon wage. To imply that doing anything less than as much as humanly possible is some sort of fraud normalizes exploitation and abuse.
If I pay the grocery store a dollar for an apple, am I entitled to as many apples as they can possibly deliver me? Obviously not.
If I pay a worker a dollar for a task, am I entitled to as many tasks as they can possibly deliver me? A lot of employers seem to think so.
If the expectation is outlined at the beginning as the job monopolizing my time and me doing whatever work comes along when I’m on the clock, then that’s the job I took and I need to be available to them.
Yes. THAT is the expectation we are talking about. If a company doesn’t expect that, then there is no issue.
in a lot of jobs the expectation is just to meet certain targets of work to be completed. If I meet those targets, the employer owes me the agreed upon wage.
Great. If that’s what your employment agreement says there isn’t a problem. Congrats on finding a white collar salaried job that involves no collaboration or expectations on availability.
If I pay the grocery store a dollar for an apple, am I entitled to as many apples as they can possibly deliver me? Obviously not.
That’s akin to hourly pay. You work an hour you get $10. You buy an Apple you pay $1. Salary is like an all you can eat buffet. You pay $20 you eat 1 Apple, 2 Apples, 3 Apples, etc. But also there are rules; Can’t take anything home, can’t share your food with a non-paying person, you’ll probably get cut off at some point if you eat too much or waste food etc.
If I pay a worker a dollar for a task, am I entitled to as many tasks as they can possibly deliver me?
I think this is the big misconception. You’re describing contract work, not salaried employment.
Sounds like there is a very easy solution to this : pay people more so they don’t have to take a second job ?
Working multiple jobs is a part of the fabric of the working world
is this guy for real? is this a common thought in America?
Does it sound fucking dystopic only to me?!
It’s commonly accepted but not commonly enjoyed.
I have met very few people in the USA that worked 2 jobs. I have never had more than one job at a time.
Additionally, I have spent a couple decades in poverty and hanging around people of similar means while those conditions were true.
Not even two part time jobs, or one full time the other part time?
I have twice worked two jobs at once. Both times I was young, late teens/early 20s. Once I was working for one bike shop, but getting fed up with management, when the owner of another bike shop started hiring me on occasion when he needed extra help- which eventually led to me quitting the first shop and working at the second one full time. The other time, I was working for my uncle’s construction business, and I took a second job at a video store one day a week mainly for the benefit of free movie rentals.
That or start paying a lot more.
Working a second job outside of the hours or scope of tour main job is one thing, but many people double dipping are literally getting paid by two companies for the same hours. That’s different imo.
Like people who are the boards of multiple companies, in leadership roles in multiple companies, and pretty much anyone at the top of company structures?
All that should matter is if they are doing what they were hired to do.
No, not like your example. If a CEO is secretly serving on another companies board you may have a point, but we’re talking about people having two jobs with the clear implication that their employers don’t know it.
“Doing what they are hired to do” is very often defined in employment agreements as working x number of hours. You can’t really say you’re doing what you’re hired to do if you take a second job that you perform during the same hours when you’re not allowed to under your agreement.
If someone wants to work 9-5, then 5-1 and somehow can manage both that’s different. For liability sake alone it’s a problem.
Mm iono, kinda sounds like people finally using the concept of salaried exempt positions properly.
For too long, people let themselves get bullied into equating salaried positions with hourly positions, having their time micromanaged and scrutinized when it shouldn’t have been the case by definition.
That’s not really the same topic. Employers still have the right to set terms of employment. If they want you to work 9-5 and not 8-4, they have every right to set that expectation. If you’re hourly they can send you home at Noon on Friday and you just won’t be earning 40 hours of pay that week. Salary they really can’t.
That’s not to say that people aren’t miss classified as exempt or that some employers try to use it as an excuse to get over 40 hours of work out of someone. Different topic all together.
Nope.
“Doing what they are hired to do” is very often defined in employment agreements as working x number of hours.
Not necessarily true anymore in white collar professions, especially nowadays with gig work. It really depends on the language and terms of your employment contract. I’ve worked for places that define the employment as 40 hours per week, and also for places that define it as specific tasks for a length of time, and also for places that define it as availability during set hours of the day. It’s very important to read the employment contract terms and the company’s employee handbook.
You can’t really say you’re doing what you’re hired to do if you take a second job that you perform during the same hours when you’re not allowed to under your agreement.
If your job explicitly defines your employment as being available and dedicated during set hours, or if your contract explicitly says you can’t take on additional employment, then you’re right. That would be “double-dipping”.
I also hated working for those types of places, because they’re usually run by micromanagers who failed up and measure their worth by how many emails they forward along. Which are probably the same type of people who are mad about overemployment to begin with.
The way I see it, it only becomes a problem if you have multiple jobs that have a problem with it. And I can’t imagine why anyone with the means to work two 6-figure jobs would choose to work for two of those companies.
Well yea. If you are staying in the lines of your employment agreement, you’re in the clear to do whatever else you want. I feel people are conflating all of these things into what this topic is really about. The problem here is when someone has two jobs as either reports the same time to both employers for payment, or agrees to certain availability and does work for the other company at the same time. It does not include hourly workers having a second job doing hourly work during different hours, or anything similar with Gig work. If you for example drove for Lyft and Uber, picked up 1 passenger for Uber and 1 for Lyft simultaneously, that would be an example of breaking the rules.
I’ve worked for a company that has been doing WFH for over three decades. It’s very clear when someone has two jobs. They are unresponsive, their work isn’t very good, and they take forever to do everything. This assumes they have two jobs in the same line of work. If they are going and getting a night job at Target or something no one cares if their work is fine.
I can’t think of anyone I know that doesn’t at least partially collaborate with their co-workers where their availability is key to their jobs. So doing work for another company during that time would never be ok. The exception to this would be subcontractors who are free to set their own schedules within reason. They are free to take other work, often required to do so, due to IRS rules, but individual contracts likely have the same sort of language where they’d need to be available during certain hours, or available for group meetings etc.
Not really. If they’re fulfilling their contractual obligations to their employer(s), then who the hell cares?
It’s long past time that we stop treating employees like they’re chattel of the company that they work for. You hire someone to do a job, which they either do to your satisfaction or not, but you don’t own them and you shouldn’t get to control the parameters of their life.
They aren’t fulfilling their contractual obligations if they aren’t allowed to have a second job and are doing it anyway, so this notion is nonsense to begin with. If you get paid hourly you can’t be working for someone else while getting paid by the first company for the same time. For salaried, typically there are expectations of how long you’ll be working or even your availability.
The company I work for has more than three decades of experience with WFH, and it’s almost always clear when someone is trying to double dip. It’s impossible to keep it hidden for long. Eventually you will have conflicting schedules, and excuses start piling up. Even if the work is good, very few jobs are done in a vacuum where you never need to talk to anyone or work things through. Most situations like that are handled by subcontractors who have all the freedoms you’re talking about. In fact the only situation I can even think of that would fit the mold of how work is being framed here is through contractors.
Salaried exempt positions should fit that mold nicely.
That’s a whole other topic.
Same topic, bud.
It has nothing to do with double dipping or the way the article describes it which isn’t really what the word means. Having two jobs you work during different hours is usually fine. Working them during the same hours is the issue.
You can assert that it’s a “problem” all you want, it doesn’t make it true. Salaried exempt has a definition which is compatible, in abstract, with working two jobs in the same working day or week span. It has to do with being able to fill the key responsibilities of your job description on a given day or week. If you fulfill those, the rest of the time is yours to do whatever you want with. The expectation is that on the other hand you will work overtime if needed to complete those key aspects without additional pay. That’s the definition in a nutshell. You adding stipulations about time and “double dipping”, et cetera is fabrication. That’s just what companies eventually pushed into being normalized as unwritten law in an ever-present desire to squeeze every single imaginary accounting cent they can out of their most expensive assets. It’s high time people pushed back on this bullshit. Most people in office jobs can do their jobs effectively in well under 40 hours. One of the reasons there’s so much bureacracy and time wasting in corporate environments is so people can fill up that arbitrary amount of time without 😱 looking like they’re doing their jobs in less than 40 hours. Businesses heavily mismanage people (and their bottom line) by assuming every single minute spent on the job as recorded is linearly related to productivity. It’s not. You will lose out much more from the inefficiency begat by a toxic culture promoted by those wrong assumptions than the comparatively minuscule gains in imaginary labor value you put down on the accounting journals. There’s only so much you can squeeze from people, beyond that it’s delusion and negative gains. A good manager understands that the true resource is employee morale, trust, and loyalty; and you can’t get that without being realistic about what it means to treat employees like human beings. Jobs used to be 9 to 5, the 40-hour standard was based on half-baked quick math a clueless 10-year-old would’ve pulled out of their ass, and study after study after study shows nothing but positives both for employers and employees in more efficient and balanced work time structures than the current mass delusion standard.
But that right there is the issue. Why should a company be allowed to prohibit employees from having a second job if it doesn’t conflict with the first one? And if a company does have that right, does it apply to all jobs? What is the difference in that case between working two jobs in the same industry in different market sectors vs working two retail jobs?
Another POV: if I incorporated myself tomorrow and offered what I do for a living as a professional service, then I become the company and the companies that hire me for my services become the client. Do clients have the right to say I can’t take on other clients? (FWIW I have seen some clients try that and get shut down immediately, and I’ve also never heard of any company agreeing to those terms with a client.)
Why should a company be allowed to prohibit employees from having a second job
Different Topic IMO. If someone wants to work 9-5 at an office job, then go work at Target from 6-10 in theory that’s fine. I don’t support it as someone that’s read the studies about productivity of the 40 hour work week being poor, I know that doing so is not sustainable and it’s not a good idea. Should a company be able to stop you from doing it? I don’t know. I’m open to the idea. It’s a far more nuanced topic though. Along the same lines are how to treat outside of work drug use. I see no reason a person can’t smoke Pot off the clock, but I don’t want to extend that to hard drugs.
…f it doesn’t conflict with the first one?
That’s been my argument since the start. Working two jobs during the same hours is conflicting. The stories I’ve read of high paid tech workers double-dipping during Covid were working both jobs during the same hours. Every time they ignore something from Job 1 because they are working on Job 2, it’s conflicting. Same could be said for WFH users who treat it like they are home on a weekend doing chores, supervising children etc. It’s not the same thing.
What is the difference in that case between working two jobs in the same industry in different market sectors vs working two retail jobs?
Usually a high level of proprietary or non-public information to start. But you wouldn’t be working at Target and Walmart from 5-10 tonight walking back and forth between the two stores. So just at a base level they aren’t comparable.
if I incorporated myself tomorrow…Do clients have the right to say I can’t take on other clients?
Absolutely allowed, but not likely. You are entering into a private contract with a company and agreeing between you on what you are do to be doing. Your contract is going to be far more specific than an employment agreement, and it’s up to you to cover all the things they would have covered including: Health Insurance, Payroll taxes, Retirement, Liability Insurance, etc. Keep in mind creating your own LLC or Corp is different than being a 1099 subcontractor. There are certain IRS rules that you have to make sure are followed (well the employer side mostly) else they can get hit with penalties for misclassifying workers as non-employees.
We have some subcontractors on staff, but afaik they sign agreements on availability and are more or less treated like employees when it comes to work output. They may have specific clauses they’ve negotiated on availability or things like that, but that’s also true of some employees too.
If you CAN do both at the same time, who gets hurt?
It’s preposterous to think you CAN simultaneously do so without impact either at all. All it takes is two meetings or two impromptu phone calls at once. You will choose one over the other, in which case the company you didn’t prioritize is hurt as well as the other employees that you’re collaborating with.
Become a contractor if you want to double dip. You set your own schedule, work as many jobs as you want, and even get to choose your own raises.
There will be impact for sure, but as long as you still perform your job to the satisfaction of both employers, then it does not matter.
Paying a wage doesn’t mean you own 100% of the concentration of a person. It means you want them to do a job, and as long as they do it well enough for your standards, then the contract is fulfilled. Whether they can do the job at 70% or 40% concentration does not matter. You still get what you have paid for.
If you want your employees to concentrate more on your job, then pay them more so they don’t have to get a second job.
There will be impact for sure, but as long as you still perform your job to the satisfaction of both employers, then it does not matter.
If both employers know you are doing it and are ok with it there’s no problem. Its when it’s being hidden from them that it’s a problem. I’ll give you an example:
So say I’m a lead collaborating on a project with two people under me. Bob does great work, needs little to no assistance, and I can trust that he gets it done not only right, but also takes ownership of it and will bring things up if he sees problems. He doesn’t just wait for me to find them as the lead. Jim on the other hand takes a lot longer to do his part. He doesn’t bring up anything like Bob does even though it should be pretty obvious that it’s wrong because it impacts his part of the work, he waits for me to review, find it, and then have to reach back out to him for it to be fixed or changed. He is also far less responsive than Bob to emails, IMs, and isn’t able to multitask nearly as well. So clearly in this situation Bob is a better employee than Jim, and Bob receives bonuses and perhaps higher pay depending on other factors than Jim. However that’s not to say Jim is a bad employee and should be fired does it? A lot of the work can be subjective. Maybe Bob found those errors because he has more experience in the job and has run into the problem in the past and Jim has not. I can’t put “find problems in documents” in their job description so vaguely and then dock them every time they miss something, that would be absurd. People are different. Bob will likely be promoted to a higher role shortly, while Jim won’t, even though they were hired at the same time for the same role. I’d like to see Jim take more ownership of his work and take it upon himself to not just wait to be told what to do on a micro-level but come to me with what he thinks needs to be fixed, and so on. These are things that can be covered at reviews, and often have, and for a little while he seems to get better at it.
So given this situation, am I wrong in keeping Jim as an employee? His work isn’t as good as his peer who was hired for the same job at the same time, and he hasn’t stepped up to take on the same responsibility in the work that I would expect someone being on the job as long as he does. Is the right thing to do to fire him outright?
But now what If It comes to my attention that during the time he was working on the project he was working a second job, and not focusing on the task he told me he was working on. Did he not find those errors because he wasn’t paying attention due to working on something else? Was he avoiding any added work from found errors so he could do work for that other company? Is his lack of multitasking ability not actually true and he’s doing work for someone else while ignoring me further delaying the project and taking my time up to help him?
“Well Enough for your standards” is entirely subjective. I don’t treat my people like robots who can be mathematically judged. There isn’t a binary existence of good or bad. I don’t fire people immediately upon feeling they are sub-standard. I feel I often bend over backwards trying to help people get better, I push for bonuses and promotion when I think they are deserved. I don’t at all believe that outcome that is all that matters. I truly believe that a person who puts in more effort and gets a worse result will be a better employee long term. I’ve seen it time and time again.
And to your last point about paying people enough; While that’s certainly true in some cases, the article cites tech workers pulling in $500,000 through it. Clearly it’s not about being under paid.
The other perfectly qualified person out of the job so that you could buy a second house?
Awfully presumptuous of you to assume someone else’s financial situation.
It’s an exaggeration to prove a point. But do feel free to get offended.
I don’t see anyone being offended by your statement.
And this “offended” comment if yours is just sophistry - yet more presumption (and accusation, a personal attack) in an attempt to “win” an argument, rather than a discussion in search of truth or understanding.
That being the case, it tells us all we need to know about you.
Calling someone presumptuous in the context of a hypothetical is an accusation. But keep trying.
I don’t work, so there’s at least one job free :) And I also don’t need any more houses. So, someone must’nt work two jobs because he steals one job from someone more needy? He got the 2nd job despite the needier one also applying, right?
Jobs are finite. You asked who gets hurt? Someone does.
Jobs are finite
Got a source for that? Or is this just more sophistry?
No offense, but if you have to ask this question, it’s not worth my time debating with you. If you’re genuinely curious, look up what an equilibrium quantity is in supply/demand economics.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia/sep-2023
Australian Beauro of Statistics lists half a million Aussies are currently “Unemployed”.
Note in this context, “unemployed” doesn’t mean “not working”. It means half a million are currently “not working and actively searching for a job”.
The ABS doesn’t track it, but less reliable sources estimate about twice that many people are “Underemployed” which means the job they have doesn’t give them enough hours. For example maybe you’ve got a job delivering pizza on Friday and Saturday nights when they need extra staff - the ABS would classify you as “Employed” even though you’re only earning $300 per week.
The number of people “underemployed” varies a lot from source to source, in part because there isn’t a clear definition of what that means.
In theory you’re right. But the best always gets the job. If the dipper gets a job he was the best. Can’t blame the winner for a system that is inherently flawed.
Most employers have verbiage against moonlighting, though not for any benevolent society serving reason of course. In practice the system is majority unaccepting of working multiple jobs.
If there were more jobs available than there were active job seekers, you’d be correct that no one gets hurt. In fact, it would be a net benefit! There are also highly skilled labor categories with thin applicant pools where an individual working a second job may be the only qualified candidate. There are certainly exceptions.
For the record, no one blames people for being people and looking out for their best interests. Just don’t ask me to defend the policies that allow it. The same policies that stagnate the economy and drive wealth inequality.
It depends on the terms of employment. If they are salaried, then there are no real work hours and just work to do. In general, if someone is salaried, they’re paid to do a job not when they do it.
They want it both ways - we are ‘overtime exempt’ because we’re ‘paid for the job’ but also after the job is done - they think they own us.
This is not true. Salaries only means your pay is decided on a yearly basis and divided into each paycheck and not calculated and tracked per hour. Other conditions of employment including working hours and specific job duties are all part of your employment agreement. If your agreement has no set hours of any sort or limitations for other work, then there’s no problem. If a company is going to agree to pay you a salary, they are going to set how many hours you should be working, and reasonably expect you not to be double dipping.
No to the second-to-last assertion, not definitionally. The last one is simply begging the question.
Which are you talking about specifically?
The one I said
Not sure why people downvoting you.
You have some good points and arguments, specially compare to the “they think they own us” comments. Everything isn’t black and white.
There isn’t a lot of room for discussion here from what I’ve seen. The demographic is very far-left to a fault. Those that are in white collar jobs should probably read their employment agreements, handbooks, etc. a lot of incorrect information floating around.
Maybe it is because I have worked in tech oriented roles (which this article is geared towards)but none of my jobs have stipulated number of hours I need to work.
How specific is your employment agreement?
Not nearly that specific. Not sure why it would be unless the company sucks at measuring performance.
There have been times in my career I wished it were more specific. I’ve found companies with loose employment agreements tend to make things your job by reclassification more often than not.
If they can get their work done on time, and with appropriate quality, who cares? If they can’t keep up with the workload, then they can get in trouble for that.
The truth is they can’t, and that’s how they get caught, and why it comes up.
Full time employees might have core hours and then flexibility outside of that. Otherwise, you do your work as quickly as possible and then outside of that is free time. Unless they are reusing the same work at two jobs, they likely are not double dipping. If their metrics are fine, there is no reason for a manager to care other than wanting to micro manage someone’s life.
To be clear: If you Tell two employers that you are working for them from 1pm to 2pm, you are double dipping. The title of the article doesn’t line up with the content. Having a second job that you work outside of the hours / commitment of your first job is fine as long as you didn’t agree not to do so with your first employer. If you want to work 9-5 earning 6 figures in a WFH white collar job, then go out and get a night job at Target and are somehow able to succeed during your first job the vast majority of employers aren’t going to give a shit. The reason employers give a shit is this is a largely fake narrative. Studies have shown the 40 hour work week is too long. People working two jobs cannot keep it up for long and be as good at their jobs. Second, people are conflating having 2 separate jobs with working two jobs at the literal same time. Working 9-5 at two companies and juggling email and meetings between them. The article touches on this, but I completely disagree with the author. So much of business is based on collaboration that having to wait for a peer who is doing work for another company now costs the first company for every person that is waiting on them. Maybe 2% of my work can be done without a single other co-worker being involved in some way. During regular business hours the expectation is that you are being paid to work and collaborate with your co-workers on a regular basis outside of normal PTO etc.
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I’ve been a lifelong student of management and a leader for over 40 years
A leader is someone people choose to follow… not a corporate lapdog with a fancy title that has been imposed on them.
Shit it’s a good thing all the people this person was ever in charge of chose to quit instead of following them, right? Otherwise your semi-though-out comeback would be worthless.
charge of chose
Riiiight… because nobody is coerced to do anything in a capitalist society because starvation and homelessness is easy, isn’t that so, genius?
hey there, I suggest you do yourself a favor and stop talking to this skates person. you’ll live longer.
I cant tell if they are just trying to argue or they’re running interference for a system that actively harms their interests, but either way, you will not convince this person of anything and they will just make you feel disheartened regarding humanity in general
So you’re saying everyone under this person was coerced to take and keep their job? Sounds pretty wild. Can I see some data to support that?
Because if not, all those who weren’t coerced made a choice. Which by your reasoning means they’re following a leader.
Can I see some data to support that?
You need data to tell you how capitalism works?
I’ve got a sale on magic glass slippers that instantly turns you into royalty going on at the moment… you interested?
Nothing to sea here…
imagine not having to pay bills.
lifelong student
So he’s an eternal amateur, with all theory but no practical experience?
A real CEO should make absolutely sure, that no employee has to work more than one job to be able to afford to live.
The US is just absolutely fucked in the head.
I don’t know a single other country (to be fair i don’t know many) where you couldnt survive if you had only one fulltime job.There’s a difference between has to work a second job, and decides to. Some people preffer having more money at the cost of their free time.
Jesse what are you talking about? That is not what the article is about. How is that relevant?
While a problem, this one is covering high paid tech workers who are pulling $250,000 per job.
Undertone: We don’t pay enough for one job to be enough. The correct response is to raise wages so people have free time.
I only read to the break, but it sounds more like this is a case of someone WFH for multiple big tech companies to maximize income - someone who isn’t interested in free time when they could be puling down multiple 6-figure jobs. There are several internet accounts of people working for MS and FB at the same time, pulling $200k+ from each.
The implication of a double dipper is that they’re really only giving 1/2 effort to each job, which is a reasonable assumption for the average person. Most people aren’t productive more than 30-35 hours a week, regardless of the number of hours they mold a chair in the shape of their ass. This seems to be a “hey, maybe the employee isn’t the problem” take - that you’re paying for production, and if the products targets are hit you’re getting your money’s worth. Now, if they’re not getting hit, or the management doesn’t have enough experience to know how much effort (in work-hours/work-years) are needed on a job, that’s a different problem which isn’t a function of the WFH laborer.
Its this, and especially with WFH there are is a pretty large spectrum of “productivity” among users. Some people are much slower than others, but we don’t fire them because of it. People that think it’s ok to have 2 jobs at once as long as they “meet their expectations” seem to be applying hourly assembly line or warehouse performance metrics to much more subjective work. It just doesn’t work that way. If my less productive employee does good work, albeit slower I don’t think he should be fired. If I find out the reason he does it slower is he’s working a second job while I wait for him, then that’s a different story.
Lol you think anyone gives 100% effort to their job? Not even the CEO cares that much.
they’re really only giving 1/2 effort to each job
total possible effort from an employee is a shitty, exploitative way to measure job performance. is someone who sucks at 100% effort a better employee than someone who does an amazing job at 50% effort? better to measure it based on whether the job’s requirements are being met. if they are, you get paid. if they are not, you get fired. as you said yourself: if the targets are being hit the employer is getting what they pay for, and they’re entitled to no more than that.
