The Unlikely Cure for Burnout? A Second Job
wired.com
wired.com
This ain't even anything new; there have been folks working two (or more!) jobs for about as long as there have been jobs. Oh, but now that it can be done remotely it's suddenly taboo?
It's all fine until there's no impact in quality in one job due to another one. In case of IT jobs (as we're on HN), there almost always is if we're talking two full time positions.
What makes you assume the performance is abysmal? If employers only suspect overemployment based on worse performance, then that leaves a possibility that there are plenty of overemployed employees who don't have worse performance.
* I'm writing software for over 20 years. All agreements I ever signed had something along the lines: "I guarantee, that I perform my work up to my best knowledge and experience". This is flat out impossible, to bear cognitive load of doing it 16 hours a day without compromising quality. Of course there's argument, that you've completed given tasks earlier. Surely, there's no review to do, no questions to answer, no backlog to pull from? Surely employer hired experienced SWE, with intention of having code-monkey, who has no interest beyond current ticket?
* I talked privately, outside of work, with people pulling two or three positions, also had displeasure working with some. There's always the same pattern: Hard to communicate with. Commited code shows lack of understanding of issue at hand. Cutting corners (missing tests etc.). Lack of engagement during refinements or analysis. Weird issues (CI/CD ate my commit, sorry). You hire senior and get zero senior-insight, as he/she is interested only in half-assing task, because of pressure they get from the other side. This all is sadly first-hand experience.
Again - nothing wrong if all parties are aware, that this is part-time gig and set expectations accordingly. It's ok, if you're really paid by task or by hour and report work truthfully. Maybe not harmful if you're just pushing papers, with little-to-no own input.
But for any creative work, reporting 8h a day to multiple companies is a fraud - plain and simple.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Unless those agreements you signed specifically say "I will not work other jobs" or something along those lines, it ain't fraud. At worst, it might be a fireable offense - but so are all sorts of frivolous things, like "the boss simply doesn't like you".
> Of course there's argument, that you've completed given tasks earlier. Surely, there's no review to do, no questions to answer, no backlog to pull from? Surely employer hired experienced SWE, with intention of having code-monkey, who has no interest beyond current ticket?
In a lot of cases, there ain't any of those things to do. Besides, "questions to answer" is trivial to juggle around without affecting one's ability to answer them.
> You hire senior and get zero senior-insight, as he/she is interested only in half-assing task, because of pressure they get from the other side.
Maybe pay better? Per the article, most intermediates/seniors considering this will do so with junior roles, specifically due to the relative lack of obligations. Most employers don't really give more than two shits about "senior insight" anyway. If your seniors are working multiple jobs, it's quite possible that the positions are senior in name only.
That is: if the task was actually engaging (or the money was worth it), they would find a way to not "half-ass" it.
> But for any creative work, reporting 8h a day to multiple companies is a fraud - plain and simple
For any creative work, reporting 8h a day to even a single company is a fraud by your standard. I know of exactly zero programmers who spend every hour of every shift engaged. Zero designers, zero writers, zilch, nada. The brain doesn't work like that - sure, flow states happen, but in between the brain needs to be thinking about something else while it chews on whatever problems in the background. A second job if anything would help performance, given that it allows for that "thinking about something else" while maximizing the opportunities to notice insights / a-ha moments.
If your colleagues working second jobs are unproductive, I can basically guarantee you they'd still be unproductive with just one job.
Then you proceed to require exact wording in agreement :-)
you're of course free to rationalize any way you want, but if it's so simple, why not bring it up with a manager?
> Maybe pay better?
Awesome. How much guarantees no issues? This much is fine? :-) https://mashable.com/article/google-waymo-bonuses
> if the task was actually engaging (or the money was worth it), they would find a way to not "half-ass" it.
Funny. Last time I had to deal with it, entire ten people team had zero issues with engagement. Only one guy had. All had comparable compensation. Care to explain this phenomenon? To make it even more funny his team brought up the issue first, as they got tired of this. Not every employer is shitty. Some of them being doesn't justify lying to all.
> I know of exactly zero programmers who spend every hour of every shift engaged.
Yup slack time is important. Every reasonable company knows that. You need to wind down sometimes. That's why you have table soccer, xboxes etc. You argue that, instead companies should assign second project to everyone, to help them relax?
>If your colleagues working second jobs are unproductive, I can basically guarantee you they'd still be unproductive with just one job.
Where can I exercise this guarantee? World is small - it's often easy to find common colleagues and find out about pre-remote performance of your teammates. It happened to me to be in such position and weirdly results were completely opposite from what you said.
Ain't my fault that lawyers are Sith :)
> you're of course free to rationalize any way you want, but if it's so simple, why not bring it up with a manager?
Because it's quite frankly none of their business. Corporations, contrary to what they might believe, do not own their employees. If they are dissatisfied with their employees' output, they are already more than willing to terminate employment for any reason, and that's that.
> Funny. Last time I had to deal with it, entire ten people team had zero issues with engagement. Only one guy had
And for all you know those ten people could be working second jobs, too, as is their right. You would have no idea because you are explicitly only measuring the ones who can't hack it, and have no visibility into those who can.
> Yup slack time is important. Every reasonable company knows that. You need to wind down sometimes. That's why you have table soccer, xboxes etc
Sorry to burst your Silicon Valley bubble, but such companies are very much in the minority.
> You argue that, instead companies should assign second project to everyone, to help them relax?
No, I argue that companies should not expect to own their employees 168 hours a week while only paying them for 40 at best. I further argue that employers hire and fire by productivity alone, and therefore employees have every right to contribute based on productivity alone rather than some archaic notion of ass-in-seat timekeeping.
I mostly agree with you, simply yet to meet someone able to pull two jobs, without visible issues. Most of our team works hybrid - some remote, some on-site. Kinda hard to go dark in second full time job for 2-4 days each week. I assume from the fully remote ones, we've some which tries this, but it is maybe 1%-3%.
Maybe things have changed in the last couple years, but my impression from the various Polish colleagues with whom I've worked was the opposite. The pay was (and apparently still is) also typically considerably below what's normal elsewhere in the EU (let alone beyond, e.g. here in the US) - which suggests yet more reason why someone working two jobs might not be very engaged at the local one (if push comes to shove and you gotta pick one or the other, it's gonna be the better-paying one that gets prioritized).
> simply yet to meet someone able to pull two jobs, without visible issues.
I guess what I'm getting at is it's possible (probable, even) that you have met folks working multiple jobs without visible issues - but the lack of visible issues and their rather understandable lack of disclosure means you wouldn't have reason to know.
Behind US - yes. However you don't get local US salary anyway, because then US Corp would hire in US. Why bother to recruit overseas?
Behind UE - depends which part. Norway? Probably yes. Spain? Not so much. Anyway aparat from rare outliners, differences aren't that much, because then nobody would work locally.
>if push comes to shove and you gotta pick one or the other, it's gonna be the better-paying one that gets prioritized
Exactly my point for this whole discussion(except sometimes it is not about money, but just who screams more). That's the moment, where you commit a fraud.
> I guess what I'm getting at is it's possible (probable, even) that you have met folks working multiple jobs without visible issues
Well, what's certain - I know people, who in private conversation (outside of my work context), admitted that they used swinging fan to move mouse in order to look active on their work laptop.
Sadly I never met anyone who said they have two creative jobs and haven't to lie about their task progress.
Maybe they are just humble and exist somewhere. Along with copy of Half Life 3. I want to believe :-)
If the US average is $60k/year while the Polish average is $30k/year, then a US company offering $45k/year to a Polish employee would represent a $15k/year savings for the US company and a $15k/year raise for the Polish employee. Win-win. Even if there's a middleman (like an outsourcing/consulting agency) in between, there's more than enough margin in that arbitrage for it to be mutually beneficial for everyone.
> Behind UE - depends which part. Norway? Probably yes. Spain? Not so much.
Same thing here. If it's 60k€/year v. 30k€/year, offering 45k€/year means savings for the employer and a raise for the employee.
> Anyway aparat from rare outliners, differences aren't that much, because then nobody would work locally.
Or they'd do both jobs and simply not care if the local one fires them.
Further, there are supply and demand constraints that result in demand for local labor. For example, even remote-only companies tend to prefer employees who work in approximately the same time zone.
> Exactly my point for this whole discussion(except sometimes it is not about money, but just who screams more). That's the moment, where you commit a fraud.
The volume knob on those screams tends to correlate with the money behind them.
In any case, this brings me back to one of my points: be the one paying the most, and you have far less to worry about.
If employers get to maximize the output:pay ratio (withholding raises, not backfilling empty roles, not hiring more employees to handle growing workloads, etc.), then it's only fair for employees to maximize the pay:output ratio. That ain't fraud; that's simply capitalism at work.
(And I guess you could argue that capitalism itself is fraud, and I'd wholeheartedly agree with you, but if employers are allowed to commit that fraud then so should employees be allowed to do so.)