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Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

Excellent points except (5) Usually immoral and often illegal

Why is it immoral? As long as the asked work gets done there's nothing wrong with splitting your time. How it any different from spending that time slacking off and working on hobbies, which could be monetized (ie art)

It's immoral because to be hired for a 40/hr full time job by 2 companies at the same time, you'll need to lie to both companies, representing to both that you're working full time, while in fact you aren't.

And presumably the lies aren't limited to the interview process. You'll probably have to lie on a daily/weekly basis to keep up the ruse (for example, what will you say when both companies want you in a meeting at the same time?)

A different take: in this line of work especially the “40 hour” requirement is an unethical backdoor way to impose a non-compete condition. It’s not entirely an arbitrary number since the 40-hour week has been customary for decades. But in practice there’s no good reason to demand that allocation of time for an exempt, salaried employee.

I don't think it's immoral if you get to accomplish all of your tasks in both companies. For what I understand, companies want you to do the work they hired you for; they make money out of you, otherwise they wouldn't need you.

Maybe a better way to be at 2 companies at the same time is by being completely transparent about working on both places with one of the companies. You automate all your full-time boring work in the first one, and in the second maybe you do part-time, or some kind of work that can align with your own interests.

maybe an etrepeneurial partnership or a flexible deal to get a new product that really interests you without having to commit all of your life.

Bill by the hour, and suddenly they call you a consultant, and it's neither immoral nor illegal. smh

That's called double billing and is considered unethical [0]:

> In law, double billing refers to charging an hourly rate to two clients for the same time spent working. The American Bar Association prohibits double billing. It is tantamount to overcharging, since the amount of time actually spent working on any one client's work is less than the amount billed to that client.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_billing

Double the rates, work half the time for each client :)

For lawyers, by the Bar Association... What does that have to do with tech?

If you can charge the amount lawyers charge per hour then it's definitely unethical.

If you are paid by the hour it's immoral (and fradulent) to submit a time sheet for more hours than you actually work. However if you are paid a salary, you are being paid to do a job without regard to how much time it takes. If you can get the work done in 10 hours, and your supervisors are happy, then that's all you're obligated to do.

I often see this, but it doesn't match my experience of being salaried (outside the US). There's never a concept of "work done", there's just an endless list of things to do that I tackle one at a time, for 42h/week. If I go faster, then it just means I do more things in that same time.

Are there really salaried software jobs where every day someone tells you "your task for today is X", and you're finished for the day once you have done it?

We have expected productivity requirements on a bi-weekly basis. The expectation is that if you finish 2 weeks worth of work early, then the next iteration you will get slightly more work. Of course this isn't 100%, (obviously someone could just take longer on purpose), but as a manager its pretty easy to tell when your direct reports are slacking off.

Personally I don't think having 2 salaried jobs is immoral. If you're not caught, I feel like it is indicative more of bad leadership than your skill. A good manager should know what someone of X skill level should be accomplishing. If you're only doing half of that, (assuming the other half was spent on another job), it should be fairly easy to notice.

Thanks for the explanation. In practice, it seems pretty similar, the manager has to estimate what is a reasonable amount of work an employee should be able to do. It's just that in my case it's over 42h/w and in your case it's more nebulous.

2 salaried jobs here would clearly be illegal though, even if in practice you could manage manage it by only working half the time per job. There are laws around how many hours you can do in a week, and two 100% jobs would blow over the limit.

It’s immoral to not live life to its fullest or do anything that is not your passions. It’s immoral because you are betraying yourself, when literally you owe no one but yourself anything.

A very Epicurean philosophy. There are other philosophical schools of that come to mind, Kant and Epictetus are diametrically opposed for instance.

Noting that if everyone thinks this way, then civilization falls apart rather quickly.

I've never signed an agreement that says I work 40 hours a week. It has never even come up.

Meh, if they're happy with your work, it's no big deal. It would be immoral if they saw you were automating the same work and decided to fire you or demand you do more.

Salary workers aren't paid for their time. Their paid for their productivity

I never understand this point personally. If you're delivering value to the multiple companies you work for such that they like you, or at least don't fire you, then I don't see anything immoral in that. It's merely corporations who insist on people working for one and only one company at a time when in reality it shouldn't matter.

there is a chance you are going to have access to valuable information of competing companies, that would put you in position of power over them, and is a clear conflict of interests.

So it's like a lawyer serving opposing parties in court, nobody's asking why it's impossible

That's only true in that particular hypothetical. There are a lot of possible circumstances without such a clear conflict of interest.

Also, in the lawyer example, someone's freedom or livelihood is on the line. In the company example, it's a company's profits, which has a much less clear relationship to either of those two things, especially in today's world of 250:1 salary ratios.

Completely agree. Do we insist that corporations only sell to a single customer? No that would be absurd. But insisting a person can only sell their labor to a single customer is seen as perfectly normal.

> and often illegal

Source? As long as it's not explicitly stated, and in my experience, it never is, then there should be no issue with this.

It's very common for employment contracts to explicitly forbid you from working on things during your employment that is not directly related to your employment. An expectation of "loyalty" is also often even included in labor law, even in very left leaning countries in Europe.

yes, which is bullshit because this said loyalty is not reciprocated in any meaningful way, I still fail to see how such conditions came to be.

As I said in a sibling comment, bill by the hour, and they start calling you a consultant, and suddenly this isn't an issue anymore :)

I've only worked at tech companies, and mostly the kind that you want to work at. But basically every company I've worked at has some clause in the employment contract about outside activities. And typically having another full time job would violate the spirit, if not the letter of the employment contract.

That said, some contracting on the side is probably fine, as long as it's not at a competitor.

Correct. Most companies have "Moonlighting" clauses.

It's a clause that originally meant that you couldn't have a 2nd night job, because you would be exhausted in your primary job, but it also includes having a 2nd job in the same hours.

Maybe in the US it is not explicitly stated. My previous contract stated explicitly that I had to work from 9:00 to 18:48 five days a week, and do 1:00 of lunch between 11:00 and 15:00. Anything deviating from that would be accounted in the Bank of Hours and be subject to additional laws regard pay.

That's fascinating. I just checked my contract and it doesn't mention working hours at all.

However, I'm not in tech, and prior to COVID, it physically wouldn't be possible to work multiple jobs remotely. So perhaps this is an artifact of that time.

Some of the other comments suggested there may be actual laws against it, I'll have to look into that.

Off-topic, but I discovered that recent legislation made my wage confidentiality clause illegal.

Interestingly, for my current role at Salesforce as part of the employment contract it explicitly states I’m not allowed to work on anything else on the side unless I get explicit permission from their legal department. Including nonprofits, hobby projects, consulting, etc. I don’t know to the extent that anyone abides by that, but they drill at home pretty strongly when you start. The language is far above and beyond what most companies insist about not working on anything with a conflict of interest, and I’ve never seen it before at any company, large or small.

Then again, there’s a difference between something being illegal and it being against your employment contract. You’re not going to go to jail for having a secret second job, but you might get fired. But at least you’d have that second job…

It depends on the country.

In France for instance, it is legal to have two (or more) jobs but they cannot be with competitors, you have a limit of hours you can work (which means that if your contract states 40 hours work then you cannot have another one), and you cannot have a clause in your contract which you usually do have (in the companies I know at least - tech oriented).

Simply insist on being paid by 1099 and don't live in California.

> often illegal

I think a citation is needed here. It _may_ be a contract violation, but I struggle to think of many jurisdictions where this would be illegal.

Could you share some examples of when this would violate a law?

I thought the whole point of being paid a salary was to not have to worry about keeping track of hours

Except if you are hired as a contractor

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