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Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

overemployed.com

71–80 of 107 posts

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#71

I see a lot of people talking about reputational risk around this, but I'd be more worried about the legal implications. Most of us have contracts that grant IP of what we create to our employer at least during work hours - if you get caught doing this how do the IP implications unwind given that both your employers have the same rights to what you produced? Would it be legally equivalent to selling a bunch of IP tha…

>> Most of us have contracts that grant IP of what we create to our employer at least during work hours

That's an American thing. I work in Central European country, and IP that I create belongs to me until I pass the rights to my employer. Conveniently, my contract states that the act of committing my code to employer-hosted git repo is the act of giving up the copyright.

You can easily do that for two employers at the same time.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#72
Where do you all find these jobs where you have so few meetings? I feel like even one meeting a day at each company could eventually lead into an overlap and you would at some point need to explain yourself why you are unable to attend.

And there are only so many excuses one can use...

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#73
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a coworker try to pull the two remote jobs at once thing. Thinking a customer was calling he answered the wrong phone and said the wrong company name, but it was actually his bosses boss. Company fired him, and actually went so far as to threaten to sue the guy until he agreed to pay restitution (one year pay), and they told the other company who fired him. I don’t know if the other company did anything else. D…

Well I can definitely blame them. It would be great if it worked both ways. Let’s say an employee who is forced to work unpaid overtime (two jobs amount) could use power imbalance to threaten the company into paying one year of their revenue. If his work quality is really that bad, why not fire him already? What if he was simply super lazy but with one job, why not make an example of him for other slackers?

If you’re working unpaid OT and don’t like it, you know it and quit.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#74
This strikes me as a glorified way of dressing up the American “I work three jobs and barely make rent”. ie it’s not really three jobs but 3x 1/3rd jobs. Often each being zero hour. This seems like the corporate equivalent.

Unless the companies in question are utterly incompetent they’re not giving anyone full time salaries with part time expectations. If people are finding examples like that - fair play.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#75
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, if you're an hourly employee and don't (as you mostly shouldn't) have non compete clauses of some sort it's mostly fine. However, as a salaried employer who generally can't also work for a competitor, it's pretty scummy unless it's something unrelated and you're putting in your hours--which it would be hard to do. I'm sure there are "life hacking" people who think this is fine but it's really not. And if y…

Right, I'm assuming the two companies would be in completely different spaces. Otherwise I'd have significant ethical concerns.

Not just ethical concerns. If trade secrets are involved there is a possibility of criminal charges.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#76
post #65
post #10

How 'powerful' are employed? What is their employment status? At previous company CTO was in boards of another 5+ companies + owned partially another 2. How that works at 'that' level?

This is a really important point. While us salaried workers struggle in a 9-5, the powerful get multiple board positions that each pay more than our annual wages.

To be fair, the 9-5 workers are paid for their hours, the multiple board positioned folks are often paid in equity, sometimes nothing, and have minimal 9-5 obligations. In having fewer 9-5 obligations, often none, it’s less immoral to have multiple board positions. Fwiw, I’m not on a board, just writing it how I see it.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#77

I think if an economist looked at this they would say workers have identified areas of inefficiency in the economy and found a way fill the gap. However, if every person takes two jobs, that means there's 2x competition for jobs and will depress wages over time. Limited arbitrage opportunity. If you actually work two jobs at once at reasonable efficiency, the businesses aren't going to be paying for this, we are.

Currently we are paying for women joining economy as land/house competition ia still same and rich just make more for claims to land. Fuck em, 0 empathy on my end.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#78

This can only work at extremely dysfunctional companies with incompetent management. I suppose there's an opportunity here for some unethical people to get some money from those companies until they collapse. In any reasonably well-run company these people would be fired quickly. Gordon Gecko might say these people are performing service to the public by helping poorly managed companies go bankrupt faster, but it's s…

This is patently untrue. I have a close friend currently working two SWE positions, roughly 60h/wk in total, and has been doing so for about a year with only positive feedback thus far. Both are publicly traded Big Tech companies, neither of which are known as being dysfunctional or problematic. There are more people doing this than you'd like to think. Check out the Discord for this community if you're still doubtful - you'd be surprised at the combination of companies people are able to perfectly fulfill expectations for.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#79
I love all the negative comments here. This has been going on forever and has eagerly been embraced by many many many companies outright, and is done very frequently.

It is called...

"consulting"

I think on HN you'd get far more "yes I do this" if the overemployed is side consulting.

That "second job" has far less expectation of time and permanence.

I love the misspelling of "mediocore". So ... apropos.

Re: Overemployed – Work Two Remote Jobs

#80
post #40

I see a lot of people talking about reputational risk around this, but I'd be more worried about the legal implications. Most of us have contracts that grant IP of what we create to our employer at least during work hours - if you get caught doing this how do the IP implications unwind given that both your employers have the same rights to what you produced? Would it be legally equivalent to selling a bunch of IP tha…

I had a coworker try to pull the two remote jobs at once thing. Thinking a customer was calling he answered the wrong phone and said the wrong company name, but it was actually his bosses boss. Company fired him, and actually went so far as to threaten to sue the guy until he agreed to pay restitution (one year pay), and they told the other company who fired him. I don’t know if the other company did anything else. D…

One of my former employees related a story to me of legitimately needing the money and working two jobs in person, one day shift and one night shift. One of the two wall street employers let him work a year until it was time to payout bonuses and only then said oh we're aware you also have a job with a competitor so you're fired. This doesn't seem much different than defrauding companies by working multiple jobs remotely.

More recently a friend told me of someone he previously worked with who advised my buddy to do what he does and hire onto multiple jobs, not consulting but as an actual full time employee. Apparently this guy is a great talker and somewhat fearless, often claiming skills well out of his area of experience and just faking it until he makes it or gets fired. This guy often has four jobs at once, falling back to two or three only when he's discovered and fired. I guess if you can't actually grab a FAANG job, you may be able to fraudulently reproduce the salary in aggregate.

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