From the Art Vandelay Business School... www.wsj.com /articles/these-people-who-work-from-home-have-a-secret-they-have-two-jobs-11628866529 These People Who Work From Home Have a Secret: They Have Two Jobs They were bored. Or worried about layoffs. Or tired of working hard for a meager raise every year. They got another job offer. Now they have a secret. A small, dedicated group of white-collar workers, in industries from tech to banking to insurance, say they have found a way to double their pay: Work two full-time remote jobs, don’t tell anyone and, for the most part, don’t do too much work, either. Alone in their home offices, they toggle between two laptops. They play “Tetris” with their calendars, trying to dodge endless meetings. Sometimes they log on to two meetings at once. They use paid time off—in some cases, unlimited—to juggle the occasional big project or ramp up at a new gig. Many say they don’t work more than 40 hours a week for both jobs combined. They don’t apologize for taking advantage of a system they feel has taken advantage of them. “It’s two jobs for one,” says a 29-year-old software engineer who has been working simultaneously for a media company and an events company since June. He estimates he was logging three to 10 hours of actual work a week back when he held down one job. “The rest of it is just attending meetings and pretending to look busy.” He was emboldened by a new website called Overemployed. Started by two tech workers this spring, it aims to rally workers around the concept of stealthily holding multiple jobs, framing it as a way to wrest back control after decades of stalled wages for some and a pandemic that led to unpredictable layoffs. Gig work and outsourcing have been on the rise for years. Inflation is now ticking up, chipping away at spending power. Some employees in white-collar fields wonder why they should bother spending time building a career. “The harder that you work, it seems like the less you get,” one of the workers with two jobs says. “People depend on you more. My paycheck is the same.” Overemployed says it has a solution. “There’s no implied lifetime employment anymore, not even at IBM, ” writes one of the website’s co-founders, a 38-year-old who works for two tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The site serves up tips on setting low expectations with bosses, staying visible at meetings and keeping LinkedIn profiles free of red flags. (A “social-media cleanse” is a solid excuse for an outdated LinkedIn profile, it says.) In a chat on the messaging platform Discord, people from around the world swap advice about employment checks and downtime at various brand-name companies. “Avoid the slippery ladder in your career,” one Overemployed post says. “Take the side door instead.” This article is based on conversations with a half-dozen workers who have secretly worked multiple full-time jobs, as employees and contractors, during the pandemic. The workers spoke anonymously for fear of being fired or not being able to pull off the arrangement again. The approach doesn’t violate federal or state laws, according to employment lawyers, but it could represent a breach of contract or raise issues around confidentiality. And it could certainly result in an employee’s termination. The Wall Street Journal verified the workers’ accounts by examining offer letters, employment contracts, concurrent pay stubs and corporate emails. Most of them say they are on track to earn a total of
Dude, your cut and paste ended abruptly ... literally, the bottomline sentence, in more ways than one
I allowed one of my star employees to do this shortly after the pandemic began since I was ok with remote work. They are actually much more attentive and responsive to calls/emails than the other fellow employees just working one job. Productivity remains consistent.
Well, tell us the total. I’m going to guess cheaters could pull upwards of $500k, depending on city. Maybe even $600k.
this remote work suxs, cus now people are finding online meetings ridiculously cheaper than having to travel abroad for physical meetings. so now instead of having 2-3 physical meetings a month, we do like 5-9 meetings a week. also weekends and national holidays mean jack schitte and bosses think they have access to employees 24/7. truth be told, i can't tell the difference between a sunday and a wednesday these days.
The Wall Street Journal verified the workers’ accounts by examining offer letters, employment contracts, concurrent pay stubs and corporate emails. Most of them say they are on track to earn a total of $200,000 to nearly $600,000 a year, including bonuses and stock. They have paid off chunks of student-loan debt, plumped their kids’ college-savings accounts and bought everything from an engagement ring to a sports car with the extra cash. The money is incredible, the 29-year-old software engineer says. So is the stress: “I’ll wake up in the morning and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is the day I’m gonna get found out.’ ”
Duh. All it takes is discipline and not using your PC for social media, sports, games, and fapping all day. Now extrapolate that sort of earning potential to 60-80 hours a week.
I like remote work. Saves me from a long commute, and I spend more time with my family. Those of us that do it are understanding of family situations, so it's not a big deal when my kid runs up asking me to wipe his butt when I'm on a phone call. And I don't even have the internet. Hotspot everything.
The article is about ppl saying they are still only working 40 hrs. They’re talking about tips to “lower expectations of boss,” basically sharing how to be below average and keep a job means you can actually pull off two salaried jobs of slacker performance it also says the cheaters will take paid time off (even unlimited) for one job to do a big project in another, or to start another off on the right foot. it’s not news worthy of wsj if we’re talking about doubling your work week
I've thought about this because I WFH and, as a consultant, there are gaps in my day that could be used for a 2nd job / generating passive income. That being said, it would require some clever scheduling and managing of my calls in order to do so. Aren't they paying Wal-Mart employees like $25 an hour right now? I'd do an 8pm-2am shift
I'm saying that I agree, you can add in extra revenue making during those slack hours at a 40 hour a week. I agree with the article and premise. It doesn't pay to be a hard worker, you just add expectations and work to your plate with little or no corresponding increase in pay. It pays to get good at your job to be more efficient and save time, then fly just below the radar so you have even more free time in that 40 hour work week. You appear to go as slow as the slowest soldier, but in fact, you are sprinting and resting. Instead of filling your extra hours with social media, meaningless web surfing, videos, sport sites, fapping, put that time to productive use. Once you have a taste of what your time is worth, double that solid work effort to 80 hours and imagine what you can build.
Too bad Silicon Valley isn’t still airing. Gilfoyle would be perfect doing this, while Dinesh tries to shame him (yet still can’t produce more code), and Richard neurotically freaks out that Gilfoyle will get caught, after Jared suggests they could sue Richard as well for being his other employer and competitor. And of course, Jain Yang reveals he’s been doing it for 5yrs, pretending to be a mediocre programmer.
Five-9 meetings a week? Haha. That would've been a minimum for me. It had gotten to the point I was in 2 meetings a day most weeks, and I wasn't even in management. It got to the point on one project we met at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day just for that project. lol. There were guys who were managers/leads that couldn't do their work because they were in so many meetings. Working OT/weekends was pretty normal, so I didn't really complain about that -- especially since they were paying us pretty well. "Why are we meeting?" "We're supposed to." "Ok." lol.
We may have, but the company was too busy trying to make money via a merger with another company. No time for Agile -- just shove stuff in and shove it out to make it look like we were worth buying. You know you're pumping out bs when the majority of your demo for your project are screenshots. About the only thing I miss about corporate culture is the free coffee and some of the people...
I guess I could do this, but then that means wasting less time on CF during the day. I think I'm good. I love you bros.
How can you work a second job without HR not knowing from your 1st job? Doesn't the primary job HR do random background checks on employees? Isn't that risky or HR doesn't really give a ****?
