How many of you have run into people secretly working multiple jobs?

[GuitarStv]

Had an interesting morning meeting today . . . where a recent hire accidentally forgot to mute his mic, and we could hear that he was having a different scrum meeting with a different company.  His crappy work and always taking forever to get back to people when asked questions all started to make sense.  Is this a thing that people are doing since it's easier to get away with due to all the work from home?

[2Birds1Stone]

Very common these days, especially in the software/IT space.

[JoePublic3.14]

There’s a current BH thread that’s related to this.

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=370444

[HPstache]

Had an interesting morning meeting today . . . where a recent hire accidentally forgot to mute his mic, and we could hear that he was having a different scrum meeting with a different company.  His crappy work and always taking forever to get back to people when asked questions all started to make sense.  Is this a thing that people are doing since it's easier to get away with due to all the work from home?

Is this person now going to get fired?

[Adventine]

Had an interesting morning meeting today . . . where a recent hire accidentally forgot to mute his mic, and we could hear that he was having a different scrum meeting with a different company.  His crappy work and always taking forever to get back to people when asked questions all started to make sense.  Is this a thing that people are doing since it's easier to get away with due to all the work from home?

Is this person now going to get fired?

That was the first question on my mind too.

[GuitarStv]

Had an interesting morning meeting today . . . where a recent hire accidentally forgot to mute his mic, and we could hear that he was having a different scrum meeting with a different company.  His crappy work and always taking forever to get back to people when asked questions all started to make sense.  Is this a thing that people are doing since it's easier to get away with due to all the work from home?

Is this person now going to get fired?

Yep.  Termination with cause.  Our contract specifically says that you cannot take other employment without discussing it with the department head.  Which he failed to do.


That was the first question on my mind too.

[turketron]

This came up a few months ago on Ask a Manager, it was pretty interesting:  https://www.askamanager.org/2021/11/im-working-2-full-time-remote-jobs-is-this-unethical.html

I think it depends on if you're actually being adequately productive at both. I've definitely had extended periods (many months straight) in my current gig where I only have maybe 4 hours of solid work per day. However, other times of the year when we have a GA or system migration or something we can be slammed for weeks on end. It'd be easy for me to say I could handle two jobs like mine, but then it'd likely all fall apart at the first "busy" period for one or the other.

edit: This is assuming it's not stated in your contract already that you can't take other employment without disclosing it.

[GuitarStv]

I think it depends on if you're actually being adequately productive at both. I've definitely had extended periods (many months straight) in my current gig where I only have maybe 4 hours of solid work per day. However, other times of the year when we have a GA or system migration or something we can be slammed for weeks on end. It'd be easy for me to say I could handle two jobs like mine, but then it'd likely all fall apart at the first "busy" period for one or the other.

My work also swings from very little to do (probably 20hrs of work total) to busy 70ish hr weeks.  Handling two jobs during the quiet times would be no problem . . . but yeah, it would totally fall apart in the busy time.

[StarBright]

Interesting! I have wondered if I am dealing with something similar right now.

This is our first 100% remote hire (as opposed to people who start in the office and then we've had them go remote after a year or so) and he is just so hard to get a hold of!

He isn't meeting goals yet, which we usually don't get too worried about in the first year, but he takes hours to respond to slack or emails and is very hit or miss on answering his phone. I've never had a request for him that didn't require a reminder.

The 37% number on the bogleheads thread sort of blows my mind!

[ChpBstrd]

I've thought about doing this as a way to double my salary, but my inherent laziness gets in the way.

[YttriumNitrate]

It would seem that working on side hustles would tend to be more efficient than trying to do two W-2 jobs. With two W-2s you're going to be taxed out the wazoo. Also, non-monetary compensation (i.e., health insurance) from the second job is basically going to be largely wasted. Third, it could mess up tax advantaged retirement accounts.

[YttriumNitrate]

I've thought about doing this as a way to double my salary, but my inherent laziness gets in the way.

The solution to that is just outsourcing one (or more) of the jobs.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169528579/outsourced-employee-sends-own-job-to-china-surfs-web

[GuitarStv]

It would seem that working on side hustles would tend to be more efficient than trying to do two W-2 jobs. With two W-2s you're going to be taxed out the wazoo. Also, non-monetary compensation (i.e., health insurance) from the second job is basically going to be largely wasted. Third, it could mess up tax advantaged retirement accounts.

I'm unclear if this guy was working the second job as a contractor or not.

[Dreamer40]

This is a little different, but my old legal office had a salaried employee who was caught waiting lunch tables at a restaurant down the street during business hours. What a moron. At least work somewhere where you won’t run into your colleagues who are annoyed with you for being unresponsive!

[bacchi]

A friend has a W2 job and a secret contract (as he told me, he has college bills to pay!) The contract job is maintenance -- take a bug, fix the bug -- and easy.

Like ChpBstrd, I'm too lazy.

[AccidentialMustache]

I would think a 2-gig is a great way to get promoted at neither, and my observation is promotion hits harder than just a 2x.

[FIRE Artist]

I work in the public sector, and even we have a corporate policy that requires clearance of any second employment or business starts with HR.  It is part of the conflict of interest policy, I guess if you tried to have a second full time job that would definitely be in conflict of the employer’s interest. 

[gooki]

Meh I took a second contract last year to see me through to my fat FIRE figure. At one stage it was actually three concurrent contracts as I was helping out a former colleagues startup for a week.

The money was nice. But having double the meetings really eats into your productive time. At least for me it's legit as a contractor I'm free to take on as many as I want, provided I do the stated hours and deliver results.

Would I do it again, nope. Well maybe if both contracts actually followed the plan. Instead both companies pivoted which made my involvement a whole lot more.

[havregryn]

I work in the public sector, and even we have a corporate policy that requires clearance of any second employment or business starts with HR.  It is part of the conflict of interest policy, I guess if you tried to have a second full time job that would definitely be in conflict of the employer’s interest.

I work for a European intergovernmental organisation and they legislated that they can confiscate any earnings I would make on the side.
There is a small annual exemption to spare them the trouble of going after people for making some money off a hobby (10 000 per year) but everything above that they can legally take away and pay into the common budget. And apparently they do. So no second job for me any time soon.

[bacchi]

It is odd, at least in the states, that we work at "at will" jobs but a lot of companies don't allow a 2nd job. It makes sense if you're working in the Tesla self-driving group AND in the Ford self-driving group but if the two positions are in completely different sectors, it shouldn't be a problem. Is this a free-market or what?

[FIRE Artist]

I work in the public sector, and even we have a corporate policy that requires clearance of any second employment or business starts with HR.  It is part of the conflict of interest policy, I guess if you tried to have a second full time job that would definitely be in conflict of the employer’s interest.

I work for a European intergovernmental organisation and they legislated that they can confiscate any earnings I would make on the side.
There is a small annual exemption to spare them the trouble of going after people for making some money off a hobby (10 000 per year) but everything above that they can legally take away and pay into the common budget. And apparently they do. So no second job for me any time soon.

Wow, that is crazy strict.  I work in public healthcare and it is pretty common for people to have side gigs, like the addiction counsellor who works M-F at their salaried day job and has private clients on evenings and weekends, or the manager who, again works M-F at their day job in hospital admin and practices as an OT on weekends doing home assessments for workers’ comp.  This kind of setup is pretty common, and as long as recruiting business is not done through their day job it wouldn’t be banned, but they have to declare what they are doing to be on the up and up. 

[gooki]

It is odd, at least in the states, that we work at "at will" jobs but a lot of companies don't allow a 2nd job. It makes sense if you're working in the Tesla self-driving group AND in the Ford self-driving group but if the two positions are in completely different sectors, it shouldn't be a problem. Is this a free-market or what?

.

Totally agree. But I guess since it's "at will" employment these types of contract conditions don't really mean anything as even without them they could still let you go without reason

[mizzourah2006]

It is odd, at least in the states, that we work at "at will" jobs but a lot of companies don't allow a 2nd job. It makes sense if you're working in the Tesla self-driving group AND in the Ford self-driving group but if the two positions are in completely different sectors, it shouldn't be a problem. Is this a free-market or what?

I think in most salaried roles they would argue they own your IP. It's not for you to decide what sector they are necessarily in or what sector/product they might offer in the the future. I know I made the mistake of mentioning to my employer that I had been approached about a part-time consulting role with an MLB team and my company's legal went crazy basically saying that any IP that would be created by me would be owned by my company and they would grant the MLB team a perpetual license. Of course the MLB team did not like that at all and that ended that.

I could have not said anything and all likely would have been fine, but they could have found out and fired me too.

[gooki]

I think in most salaried roles they would argue they own your IP. It's not for you to decide what sector they are necessarily in or what sector/product they might offer in the the future. I know I made the mistake of mentioning to my employer that I had been approached about a part-time consulting role with an MLB team and my company's legal went crazy basically saying that any IP that would be created by me would be owned by my company and they would grant the MLB team a perpetual license. Of course the MLB team did not like that at all and that ended that.

That's bat shit crazy. The company only own the IP you create on company time and or company devices. Outside of that they don't own squat unless you signed an unbelievably restrictive contract.

[AccidentialMustache]

That's bat shit crazy. The company only own the IP you create on company time and or company devices. Outside of that they don't own squat unless you signed an unbelievably restrictive contract.

Which are common here. They'll even have the language left there, despite it being unenforceable in many (progressive) states, because people don't know that those terms are unenforceable.

[CoffeeR]

Had an interesting morning meeting today . . . where a recent hire accidentally forgot to mute his mic, and we could hear that he was having a different scrum meeting with a different company.  His crappy work and always taking forever to get back to people when asked questions all started to make sense.  Is this a thing that people are doing since it's easier to get away with due to all the work from home?

There is a reddit devoted to this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/