Stumbled into a WILD Reddit community r/overemployed | Hacker News Reader

Stumbled into a WILD Reddit community r/overemployed

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36 pointsBerislavLopac38 comments

I cannot see what is so WILD about this aside from the author's preceonceived notions being subverted.

Is this deceptive/unethical if they are getting their job done? I don't believe so. Contrast that to /r/antiwork where many people there maintain multiple jobs to make ends meet - I would call it more unethical that such a situation is being normalized and accepted.

Or contrast that with CEOs who sit on and are paid by several company boards, such as the author of the tweet... who sits on other boards themselves.

It's just marketing buzzwords to attract attention to the tweet.

I’ve personally managed several contractors (infra devs) recently who have definitely been running multiple gigs. It’s blindingly obvious because they interview well, start out delivering to expectations, but then performance drops off a cliff, with a whole library of excuses. They don’t last long.

I suspect the knack to maintaining multiple jobs successfully is picking the ones with very inexperienced or indifferent management.

Being "Overemployed" by holding two or more jobs at once, (which is not what that word means, at all) is not unethical. Many of the "tips and tricks" posted there are unethical. That's what the author said.

Might I direct you to the IEEE/ACM Code of Ethics...

>2.08. Accept no outside work detrimental to the work they perform for their primary employer.

After 40 hours, your Quality tanks. Period.

It is absolutely unethical.

Might I direct you outside to the real world.

You are quick to judge workers but not employers. Where’s your outrage at rampant wage theft (a much much bigger number than the so called time theft you’re complaining about) and workplace surveillance that some of these techniques are a response to

Yeah, I had to look:

- Bessemer Venture Partners, Partner

- Rupa Health, Board of Directors

- Papaya Global, Board of Directors

- Shippo, Board Observer

- Syndio, Board of Directors

- ServiceTitan, Board Observer

- Viva Republica (Toss), Board of Directors

- StubHub, Board Observer

It used to be that game recognized game, but everybody's a hater nowadays.

Seems like a good way to prevent this would be checking for employees showing colliding stubs via The Work Number (https://theworknumber.com/), Equifax's private Tattle-for-Dollars service.

Why would anyone want to prevent this? America is free for people to work as many jobs as they want.

Why are you telling on workers

For anyone stumbling across this: Whether you’re “overemployed” or not, it is a great idea to freeze The Work Number for your own privacy.

https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze

Lol, this seems like a surefire way to add yourself to the list :)

How many of these people are software engineers? Not shaming, if anything I'm impressed. I'd have to hustle super hard to hold down two Senior positions at once, never mind three or four!

So true. If I let myself go and immerse in family life I sometimes struggle to clock in 10-20 hrs per week, let alone 80-160!

A lot are because ticket oriented work with sparse meetings fits the bill

This is actually blowing my mind. The fact is, it sounds like the employees are trying to actually do their work at multiple jobs. Does this mean the traditional model of working at one job at a time will be disrupted?

Will we all be working at 3 or 4 jobs in the future?

If you work hourly just pad all the work 3x and tadaa you are working 3 jobs.

In a way “consulting” have been doing this for ages.

You can see Uber as being a chaffeuer to many different people, I wonder if someone will Uberize IT jobs, e.g. you have 3 or 4 clients, and your work for the next hours/days might be a piece of code client A needs solving, or setting up a server. If you're idle after that, hey client B has this task...

Link for the lazy to the actual reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed

And website with tons of info, if you are actually interested: https://overemployed.com/

This sort of thing is why remote employees are going to be the first to be laid off during hard times. It's going to suck going from 600k /yr to zero.

If they perform well, I wouldn’t think so, bad performers will go first. The way you phrased it makes it look like you are really jealous :)

Maybe. We all get to choose our own life strategies.

If you can make it work for a year, you've got 3 years of padding.

Maybe you do, maybe you don't; it depends on what assets the money has been invested in. I doubt someone who chooses to pursue this kind of path keeps it as mattress cash.

what's the argument here? investing has risks?

That it would, in fact, suck to go from 670/yr to 0 - unemployment.

Not necessarily. Since my wife and I married 8 years ago, we’ve never spent more that 40% of our combined income annually.

I haven’t had consistent income for almost 9 months now as I am attempting to transition from a blue collar lifestyle (carpenter and electrician) to become a web developer.

I wrote my first html and qbasic code back in the 90s but I always told myself that I could never be anything other than a tradesmen because of my upbringing.

Now I’m looking to change that and it’s only possible because we’ve been so frugal.

Going to 0 always sucks

Seems about 3x less certain than someone with one job going from 200k to 0

If you're undisciplined with money it will suck.

I spend less than 20% of what I earn, and if I went up to 600k then it would be a smaller percentage. Not everyone follows the hedonistic treadmill and does that stupid thing of increasing expenses instead of increasing money-producing assets.

People often combine OE with FIRE

What are these things?

overemployed, financial independence retire early

in other words, take multiple jobs, work only as long as it takes to do the work for each, and save in order to retire young

I certainly hope not. I've been fully remote working a single job in a tiny, mountain town since 2016 and have been more productive than ever.

I'm happy to travel for work, but will never give up my morning coffee on the continental divide for an office again. I'll switch professions and work at the local hardware store to keep this up :) (I do very much enjoy software work FWIW)

It's quite gratifying being in an environment surrounded by what you love. It's not for everyone, and I'm very grateful it all worked out. Unfortunately, the little towns like this just don't have economies to support my profession, and I'm incompatible with the big cities.

Layoffs are happening and only the overemployed are the ones who easily weather that. It’s job insurance. In the US employers will drop people on a dime

You don't think that this will be a factor? Managers will favor those they know are not dividing their time or attention over those they suspect, or those of whom they are unsure. That's the crux of my theory here.

Layoff has been high risk for many now, OE or not. Many who OE meet or exceed performance expectations

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