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Comment by throwaway1492 | Hacker News Reader

In 2018 I was working low effort job at a insurance/finance type company that was having layoffs. So I started interviewing for a new job, and landed a remote job and took it. I didn't quit my old job. So I worked two jobs for about a year and went and got a third remote job (these were software dev jobs, w2). I did this through part of the pandemic. Working three jobs was doable when it was just me at home, but with the family home during lockdown it was too stressful so I quit two. I made A LOT of money during this time. But if I had it to do over, I'd focus on getting one high paying FAANG job instead.

Apparently this became common at some point, "over employment" is a thing now, with a subreddit and everything.

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I know someone who had 2 FT remote engineering jobs for a bit last year. It only lasted about 4 months before the plate-spinning got to be too much and he ended up with just one of the jobs. And then because his performance had been kind of spotty while juggling the two jobs his review wasn't great and he lost that one too.

This is the more common outcome than the successful ones, but people are often embarrassed to share so they are much less reported.

I've seen great engineers end up falling flat on their ass because of trying to do this. The majority of people just don't have the ability/capacity to be good at two jobs, and once people notice that you're meh or worse, it's very difficult to change that. Most people are better off just kicking ass at one job, than being acceptable at two.

Meh is fine. I’m better off doing Mechanical Turk than trying to go above meh at an employers.

Now I wonder about the negative scenarios. E.g. did someone use their personal github account to join two organizations. Or was there an employee transfer from one company to the other. The possibilities are endless.

What about one senior engineer working as senior for a few years in company X and then joining in parallel company Y but working as non-senior (it’s easy to hide working experience in your cv). Doesn’t sound that stressful.

I know someone who did it successfully - unfortunately one of the company is failing though so he'll have to come back in our income bracket

I think it's a sad reflection of company culture of this time if you can put in 1hr of work per day and coast along.

We really got soft with all this bs. Which is why I don't have employees, just contractors I paid (quite a bit) to deliver results - not butts in seats or doing "anti-harassment training"

Larger companies tend to be bogged down with dependencies that can easily leave you waiting on someone, especially if you have no incentive to press them to move quickly.

There’s no reason to care as an employee. I get paid whether or not our customers are upset (not long term, but long enough for me).

I'm sorry, I just have to say it. Over-employment is unethical and SW devs just shouldn't do it. It's ethical to have multiple 1099 or corporate clients; just bite the bullet and go into business for yourself.

I don't care about arguments regarding the unethical things employers do to employees. It's wrong, period.

edit: what a trash heap of replies.

> Over-employment is unethical

If the dev is actually not performing/delivering. If there's no complaints, and they are on salary (not hourly), what exactly is the ethical problem here?

Most people consider most deception unethical. And most people would consider it unethical to exploiting the difficulty of quantifying the work they do, colleagues' misplaced trust in your estimates of how long it would take to fix and them ultimately not complaining about your performance levels mainly because they mistakenly believe you're actually trying your best and will get better in a few months time... to earn twice as much as everyone else.

For the avoidance of doubt I thought there was absolutely nothing unethical about my coworker who was approached about a job in a different timezone and told everyone he'd taken it but was happy to work before 5pm.

Can you make a compelling argument? Just saying it’s wrong is not an argument.

If employers don’t like it then they should pay by the hour for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I don't know about you, but my contract states I'm supposed to work X hours and includes a passage on how overtime is handled. The rest is common sense: That an additional, equivalent job can't possibly be done well.

Your employer pays for your (mental, in this case) energy.

I know accountants who work between 80 and 100 hours a week for 3 months every year. Is it miserable? Yes. Is it impossible to work that number of hours and turn out quality work? I don't think so.

For the rest of us, we call ethics problems “opportunities.”

It's wrong if it's a breach of contract.

Nothing unethical to having multiple jobs. Plenty of poor people outside of tech do it

A slave must not secretly sell his services without giving his master a cut, therefore masters consider this unethical.

Unethical according to your system of ethics. I never claimed that was part of my ethical system.

Unless you’re religious or something and believe in a global definition of ethics that applies to everyone, there’s no real point in telling everyone what’s unethical. Is it unethical to you? Great! Then you don’t do it. I will do what I want.

lol, this argument could be used to justify literally any act. Our society does have a shared system of ethics, it is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

> Our society does have a shared system of ethics

No, it isn't. Our society is made up of many countries, something Americans often forget. And fortunately, we don't have everything in common, otherwise it would be a nightmare.

I was contemplating this some time ago and realized my contract is to commit 8 hours a day to my customer. I personally could not mentally carry the weight of not delivering what I agreed and since I have family I can't do 2x8 hours a day. So your opinion makes sense to me. I personally know people who have 2+ remote jobs and I keep hearing they actually half do them and they can only do this because the work place does not seem to care.

My contracts don't have any stipulations about outside work and don't require me to commit to a certain number of hours.

What's the meaningful ethical difference between an individual with multiple W2 income streams, and a sole prop with multiple 1099s?

> what a trash heap of replies

You should expect exactly that when using phrases like “it’s wrong, period”. There are not many things in this world that are wrong, period. Over employment is not one of them, period.

I’m curious, how does an over employed person update their resume or their LinkedIn profile. I guess they pick just one position and don’t mention the other(s). Still, this could lead to some interesting scenarios.

They usually don’t update it and that’s a telltale sign

Unfortunately, the overemployment subreddit is mostly just fan fiction, but for a time, it was a reality for some, and for a lucky few, still is.

Maybe the subreddit is fanfic but the phenomenon itself is definitely not - I’ve been told by multiple founders they had experienced it with remote employees.

I’m doing it and most friends were doing it. Layoffs have taken a lot down to just one job though.

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