"Overemployed is a community of professionals looking to work two remote jobs, earn extra income, and achieve financial freedom. Be free from office politics and layoffs. Instead, negotiate a severance and invest in your life."
I've read every thread in the sub the past two weeks and... just wow. Per the admission of some they/people they know have been doing this as far back as the 1990s. Are you aware of anyone doing this? I'm curious how widespread this is.
Personally, this feels extremely dishonest to me, last year I worked over 450 hours of overtime just trying to keep freight moving for my company and the idea that there are people out there drawing multiple full time incomes for doing 5, 10, 15 hours of work a week between their multiple jobs (that's what people are claiming in the sub) just makes me sick.
If you tell some granny that fixing her toilet will cost her 5k€ because it will take you a month, and you do it in a day, you're basically taking advantage of someone's ignorance to scam that person. It's exactly the same if it's some tech illiterate small business owner, or even any relatively honest decent boss.
Now of course I don't see the harm in doing that to evil abusive companies, but I think most of the companies who deserve to be treated that way would also never let you get away with that kind of thing.
On one hand, businesses fight to reduce their opex liabilities by paying people as little as they can to fill the role. On the other hand, some workers fight to reduce their time liabilities by doing as little as they can to satisfy that role.
I think it's hard to denounce the latter while maintaining that the former is fine.
The moral lens we use for businesses is very different than the one we use for people.
For example:
> you're basically taking advantage of someone's ignorance to scam that person
This is arbitrage in a nutshell, and people don't usually have an issue with it when businesses do it. Dropshippers are doing pretty much exactly this.
To me, it just needs to be consistent. So long as there remains an adversarial relationship between employers and employee, employees should be allowed to take advantage of the same tactics. If employers want to try to reduce their liabilities by paying as little as they can, employees should be able to try to reduce their liabilities by doing as little work as they can.
Also, a lot of people (maybe most of us here) are not paid for the time they put in, because they're salaried (again, likely to the employer's benefit). I don't get paid more for working 50 hours than I do for 40.
> If you tell some granny that fixing her toilet will cost her 5k€ because it will take you a month, and you do it in a day, you're basically taking advantage of someone's ignorance to scam that person.
Just another tidbit on this (sorry it's somewhat out of order): you're taking advantage of the granny because no one expects her to know what it costs to fix a toilet. I think there's a reasonable expectation for a company to understand it's labor needs and costs, which makes it far less objectionable. If they want to buy X, and they buy from a dropshipper for twice the price instead of direct from the manufacturer, has the dropshipper done something wrong?
Or what if they want a widget, don't specify the material, and the manufacturer makes it out of plastic even though the per-unit price is high enough to afford metal (presuming metal is better)? Is it on the manufacturer to cut their profits as low as possible to sell the best product, or are they allowed to simply comply with the requirements they were given and pocket the rest?
In some cases they are outsourcing the work on their own dime, I saw at least one thread where someone said they were outsourcing it to another country, one where someone was asking about doing it, and a third where someone was actually caught doing it (I believe it was an article share).
A lot of the attitude seems to be "offload it to other people on your team/subordinates".
Lots of "refuse to attend meetings if they overlap, remember they need YOU you don't need them" type attitude too.
I think dishonest might be an understatement for a lot of what I've seen in that sub.
When I read this, I think, "Good for them. They found an edge by reexamining the rules and disrupted the model." Blaming individuals is foolish when a system incentivizes actors to play optimization games.
I applaud the people that can game the system. Because it's not made to reward you. You are a cost center to someone else's wealth. You have good employers and bad employers, but either way your relationship isn't built on equivalent standing. You provide a paid service valued by your employer's benevolence towards your hard work and dedication, and its not in their best interest to reward you with a fair wage.
If someone is doing it and all employers know and are cool with it then more power to them.