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Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

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Re: Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

#51

Post by alexandercrohde »

candiodari wrote: post #50
watwut wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ok when you don't lie in the process. It is not ok when you pretend to work full time while actually working only equivalent of part time in each workplace (does not matter all that much whether drop in productivity is due to burnout or cheating on time spent by working). The productivity of programmers is often hard to measure, if you don't take advantage of it then it is fine. There are jobs that dont require…

Isn't it wrong for a company to lie about things like remuneration and money too ? Is it okay for companies to pay people they claim internally have the same pay (for the same work), but pay them differently based on things like location ?

That's actually a really interesting parallel to draw. I have certainly seen a non-negligible amount of dishonest management ("Sure we'll promote you, we just need a few more cycles" to a friend who was about to be fired). From a legal perspective I'm sure what's signed in writing makes the difference.

But we're not really talking legal here, we're talking ethical. And ethically, I'm not sure why dishonesty on paper is worse than dishonesty in a 1-on-1.

You'll find all kinds of notions/norms in our culture that are inconsistent with each other. Usually it takes a standup comedian to point out our own hypocrisy.

Re: Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

#52

Post by lamby »

IanDrake wrote: post #46

Double dipping is the wrong phrase here. Having two jobs or two gigs is not double dipping. Double dipping is typically a form of cheating by getting paid 2x for 1x amount of work. Say I was being paid to create a website for two clients and it took me 100 hours to finish it. Then I used the same codebase for another client, spent 5 hours modifying it, and then delivered it to them billing another 100 hours. That wou…

> Double dipping is the wrong phrase here.

Indeed. I initially thought that this was working remotely for a company twice via two personas. As in, appearing as Alice and Bob on the company Slack, etc.

(I'm not sure your example is double-dipping or cheating, but that's another thread...)

Re: Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

#57

Post by scalesolved »

logfromblammo wrote: post #39

I'd love to have just one full-time remote job. Anyone managing to do two at once more than makes up for any points lost on ethical grounds with the bonus points for technical chops and sheer moxie. If ever were in such an enviable position, these are the potential pitfalls I might see. - The companies schedule mandatory meetings at the same time. - The companies schedule on-site days that make travel arrangements im…

Have you applied to lots of remote jobs? What's been the biggest hurdle for you in getting one?

Re: Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

#58

Post by jefecoon »

Long time ago, in a dot.com startup epoch long ago:

Our Seattle/Bellevue based startup hired VP & Dir of outside sales in Silicon Valley. Expensive hires, big payout to recruiting firm, then these two proved extremely difficult to get on the phone, schedule meetings with, et al.

SVP Sales flew in unexpectedly, called & had them pick him up at San Jose Airport. When he threw his bag into the trunk he noticed they had not only our sales & mktg materials, but SEVEN other companies' materials as well. He grilled them on what work they'd accomplished, clients called / met, et al, then ended up firing them before he flew home.

We passed along info to authorities, who later shared the recruiting firm had been in on it, and they were trying to collect evidence to persecute. Sounded like they were collecting recruiting fees & salaries, then sharing among all 'co-conspirators.' FBI was pulled into it, so I assume it involved fairly substantial cash.

Re: Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

#59

Post by rlpb »

MichaelGG wrote: post #47
rlpb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Hey engineer A, you're just as good as B, but we're going to pay you less..." Let's face it. As an employee, you want to earn as much as you can. As a company, you want to make as much profit as you can, which means that you base your target pay on market rate (be it above or below market rate). Market rate is set by the competition. Really it's "we're going to pay you enough that you don't leave to work for someo…

Don't think I said it's evil, just wrong. Obviously it's how the market works, and I've taken advantage of this myself. Just saying that, aside from "well, we can get away with it", it's not that defensible.

> Don't think I said it's evil, just wrong.

OK. But I'm saying it's not wrong either. It is exactly how our economy works. Other large scale economic systems have not been successful. We know no better way of arranging things. If companies didn't compete, the economy would not be functional and we wouldn't be able to have nice things.

Re: Ask HN: Remote Employees Double-Dipping?

#60

Post by gaius »

ghshephard wrote: post #22

I had a DBA, very senior, who was working for me on contract while maintaining a full time job at another Silicon Valley company. I was paying him $50K/Year to ensure that none of our Oracle Systems ever had an issue, and in the event of a problem, he would fix it. What I liked about this arrangement is that he was highly incentivized to ensure that he would have to do the least amount of work, so his deployments wer…

Was the other company aware of this arrangement too? Just curious.
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