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Tag: overemployment

  • Why Employees Get Away With Secretly Working Multiple Jobs

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    A growing number of employees – up to 5 percent of the tech workforce – are secretly working at two jobs, or three or more. Some of it is side hustle, sure, but an ever-increasing number of these folks are working two or more full-time jobs for two or more companies. 

    And it’s becoming harder to keep it a secret.

    I imagine their workday looks a lot like that cliche sitcom storyline when the protagonist accidentally schedules two dates with two different romantic interests on the same night at the same location. For what it’s worth, The Office did it the best in “Casino Night.”

    It invites the question: How long can you keep that up? If television has taught us anything, it’s that this scheme always ends in sadness for everyone involved.

    The thing is, CEOs and HR departments have sensed the overemployment trend for years, but they have a very hard time sniffing it out, even when it’s taking place right under their noses. I’ve witnessed it in my own companies, and I like to think I’m the kind of leader who is down with the kids and their K-Pop.

    But in larger megacaps, where every employee is a number and their productivity is a tiny percentage notch in a chart, well, a lot of the time leadership doesn’t even know their names, let alone how many jobs they might be working. And middle management just wants to make sure those employees are getting more notches of productivity out of AI.

    Well, they’re productive with AI all right. That’s actually part of the problem. In fact, the company might even be employing one of their AI agents. And that scares the holy hell out of them. 

    “We didn’t figure out ‘Jared’ was an AI until we went to his desk and discovered that he was two pillows stuffed into an overcoat. We just thought he had a thing for floppy hats.”

    Look, I’m not here to out anyone. I’m not here to judge. I’m not here to fix the glitch.

    I’m just going to tell you the real reason why tech employees have multiple secret jobs.

    It’s the Money. Or Is It?

    The first and most obvious answer to any question like this is money. Always.

    But like any obvious answer, it’s never that simple.

    In this latest incarnation of the overemployment trend, the motivation might just be revenge. In fact, I believe it’s more like a pre-emptive strike against the treachery that lies ahead in a career in tech.

    Now, this article from Fortune points to a Reddit community (shocker!) to which a lot of these folks come to get advice, talk leads, and discuss the tactical steps for getting away with working two or more jobs at once.  

    And let’s not dive into clickbait. A lot of these jobs are being held down by legit independent contractors who are up-front about their free agency. But I’ll remind you that the concept of job is evolving, mostly because employers throttled loyalty to near zero, meaning pretty much all jobs can be considered contract jobs now.

    A few years into the loyalty mess, we find the more ambitious among the tech talent making these pre-emptive strikes. Why put all your income eggs into one basket when your boss can light that basket on fire and replace you with a chatbot on a whim, then brag about their strategic productivity and efficiency gains to the board and in the press?

    Nah, it’s not just the money. It’s about getting their bag while they can. And when that’s the endgame, the means aren’t always … shall we say, ethical? 

    Use AI to Lie, Cheat, and Steal

    My “favorite” line from the that Fortune article:

    “Interviews should be gamified. Lie, cheat, and steal. Use AI. Tech interviews are 80 percent an opportunity for some blowhard at the company to impress their skill on you. With AI, the walls of tech are coming down.” 

    The gall. The audacity. The sheer … bleeping … hubris. Where did these kids pick up this kind of behavior?

    “From you, Dad, all right? I learned it by watching you!”

    Yeah, I’ve used that joke before, but it works so well in this instance.

    Leadership and management dropped ChatGPT on every desk and tacitly told employees to figure out how to use AI to work themselves out of a job. This went one of three ways:

    1. The technically illiterate and fearful poked around fearfully until their productivity went to zero. Seeya!
    2. The go-along-to-get-along crowd literally made shit up and performed AI productivity theater. Some got caught. Most didn’t. They’re still winning little fake AI productivity Oscars.
    3. Some of the people who actually know tech started figuring out how to use AI to apply for, interview for, and even work additional jobs while also using AI to look hyper-productive for their current employer, who mandated they use AI. 

    I mean, I’m an original AI platform inventor from 15 years ago, and when I got a hold of these new tools in the 2020s, the first thing I did was write scripts and hook them to chatbots to automate any stupid, mindless thing I had to do more than twice in a day.

    How many stupid, mindless things does your average corporate employee do in a day?

    I mean you put the candy right there in front of them and told them not to touch it.

    So 95 percent of these workers were loyal and obedient, but 5 percent of them are working for someone else while they’re working for you, and filling their bags.

    Here’s why that 5 percent is about to go way up.

    We’re All Contractors Now

    This is what happens when you tell workers they’re disposable.

    First, they get mad about it. 

    Then, they start acting like it.

    Then they get good at it.

    And that’s where we are right now: “How do I get my bag before they fire me?”

    They will get fired. I mean, Michael Scott wound up alone at the end of the night (or did he?). Plus, it’s straight-up unethical. It’s a form of theft, according to every CEO it’s ever happened to. But that doesn’t bother the multi-jobbers. They’re expecting to be fired at some point. It’s the very reason why they’re setting up these little insurance policies in the first place.

    There are, according to the Fortune article, 430,000 of them on Reddit and, also in that article, it’s clear that firing them doesn’t even stop them from doing it. They’re throwing around figures like $500K working three to five jobs at a time. Lose one. Get another.

    If that last sentence didn’t trigger a little explosion in your brain – hey, maybe you should think about a second job, you know, just on the side or whatever – then you’re not human. And even if you have zero empathy, I’d ask you to at least consider human nature, and why this is all happening in the first place.

    Join the rebel alliance of over 10K tech professionals on my email list. You keep living the dream, I’ll keep making the jokes.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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    Joe Procopio

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  • He Secretly Works 2 Full-Time Remote Jobs and Makes 6 Figures | Entrepreneur

    He Secretly Works 2 Full-Time Remote Jobs and Makes 6 Figures | Entrepreneur

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    This story originally appeared on Business Insider.

    Less than a year into his first full-time job out of school, Jason, a 22-year-old software engineer based on the West Coast, decided he wanted to earn some extra money to supplement his $75,000 salary.

    Jason’s position was fully remote, and he told Insider he was able to get all his work done in only 10 to 15 hours per week — so he figured he had the time to do something else.

    He thought about trying out a side hustle like growing microgreens, taking odd jobs posted on Craigslist, or doing freelance programming work, but said he ultimately decided to look for a second full-time or part-time job.

    In November of 2021, he started a second full-time remote software engineering role. Today, he said he typically works 20 to 30 hours a week total across the two jobs and earned a combined $144,000 last year, according to documents viewed by Insider.

    And he hasn’t told either employer he’s double-dipping. Jason’s real name is known to Insider but has been excluded to avoid any professional repercussions.

    “I wanted to increase my income,” he said. “I felt my workload at my first job was low enough, and I knew that if I couldn’t handle it then I could simply quit one of the jobs.”

    While juggling two roles can be stressful at times — like when he has overlapping meetings or receives unexpected work — Jason said that in some ways, his working arrangement reduces his stress.

    “I’m more willing to say ‘No’ to tasks at one of my jobs since I know I have a backup job,” he said.

    Jason is one of many Americans who have taken on additional work in part due to high inflation, but he’s among a smaller group of white-collar workers secretly holding multiple full-time remote jobs to, in many cases, double their salaries.

    But the window to pull this off may be closing, as many companies are calling employees back to the office and listing fewer fully remote positions. As of March, roughly 13% of job postings were remote, according to the staffing firm Manpower Group, down from 17% in March 2022 but up from the pre-pandemic level of 4%.

    And as knowledge of this phenomenon grows, some members of the overemployment community are worried they’ll eventually be found out. While holding two jobs at once doesn’t violate federal or state laws, it could breach employment contracts and get people fired, employment lawyers told The Wall Street Journal. It’s already happened to some workers.

    The desk in his apartment where Jason usually works. Jason via BI

    5 strategies to work two remote jobs and get away with it

    Jason said he uses five different strategies to juggle both jobs and not get caught.

    First, he said he tries to overestimate how long his tasks will take to give himself more time to manage the workload from both jobs.

    “If I finish a task, I will hold on to it for a while before I submit it for review,” he said.

    Second, he said he makes sure he doesn’t overperform at his jobs and attract extra attention and assignments.

    “Whenever possible, I try to seem somewhat incompetent so that my coworkers are more understanding when I take a while to finish a task and so they don’t give me lots of difficult tasks,” he said.

    Third, Jason said he dedicates less time to some work when he can get away with it.

    “There are certain tasks I have like reviewing other people’s work, so sometimes I will not properly review their work so that I have more time to work at my other job,” he said.

    Fourth, he said he’s learned to turn down projects.

    “Whenever I get asked to take on more work, I will sometimes say ‘No’ since I already have work on my plate,” he said.

    Fifth, he said he makes sure his colleagues are aware when the completion of his tasks is being held up by others.

    “Whenever this happens, I make sure to mention this to my coworkers and managers so that they expect the work to be delayed,” he said.

    Why he’s not worried about an overemployment crackdown

    Since taking on two full-time remote jobs, Jason said he has immersed himself in the “overemployed community” online — the r/Overemployed subreddit has 176,000 members.

    He said many members of the community are concerned about overemployment becoming too widespread or receiving too much press, because then employers might work to identify and crack down on these employees.

    But Jason said he’s never been particularly concerned about this.

    “I didn’t think enough people would be able to manage overemployment either because of their career, specific job, stress tolerance, desire to work more, etc and I still think that’s true,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think most employers would care enough to crack down on it — particularly if their employees are getting their work done.

    Going forward, Jason said that he hopes to dedicate more of his time to a new business he started last December, though it’s still in the early stages.

    In the meantime, he said he plans to continues to keep working at both jobs, and that the extra income has helped him have the financial security and life he desires. He said he’s pretty frugal — he doesn’t own a car, rarely goes out to eat, and lives in a one-bedroom apartment that costs $1,200 a month.

    “For me, my current lifestyle feels like I’ve made it because I pretty much have everything I want,” he said.

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    Jacob Zinkula

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  • ChatGPT and its ilk are making it easier for remote workers to secretly hold two or more full-time jobs 

    ChatGPT and its ilk are making it easier for remote workers to secretly hold two or more full-time jobs 

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    If you’re managing remote workers, how do you know they’re working only for you? In a survey by the job site Monster earlier this year, 37% of respondents said they had more than one full-time job. Being “overemployed” by choice became easier when the pandemic normalized remote work.

    Now add to the mix ChatGPT and its ilk, which can make many jobs much easier to perform. For remote workers who’ve embraced overemployment, these artificial-intelligence tools can enable them to not just do two jobs, but to do them with time left to spare—or to even do three or four jobs, if they’re willing to increase the risk of burnout or getting caught. 

    That’s already happening, according to a Vice report this week. The publication said it spoke to various workers holding two to four full-time jobs with help from A.I. tools, withholding their real names for obvious reasons. Fortune could not independently verify the reporting. 

    According to Vice, one member of the overemployed community has been using ChatGPT to do two jobs and is hoping to add a third, increasing his compensation from $500,000 to $800,000. He considers himself part of the FIRE movement (“Financial Independence, Retire Early”) and is not yet 30.

    And one Ohio-based technology worker, the report states, upped his jobs from two to four after he started taking advantage of ChatGPT.

    It’s unclear how many workers may be using A.I. tools for overemployment, but there’s little doubt that such tools can dramatically reduce the time needed to complete tasks. 

    Last month, Ethan Mollick, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, decided to find out for himself. He gave ChatGPT, GPT-4, MidJourney, and other “generative A.I.” tools 30 minutes to work on a business project. The results were “superhuman,” he explained, adding that he would have needed a team and “maybe days of work” to do all the work the A.I. did in half an hour.

    It seems logical that some members of the overemployed community would take advantage of such capabilities. 

    And remote workers’ managers, often, care mostly that a task gets done by a certain time and do not closely monitor activities. “You say to somebody, ‘Look, you gotta get this done by next Friday at noon.’ You don’t really care when they do it…as long as it gets done,” Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary said last month.

    Of course, eventually companies and their investors will adjust to the new reality.

    “It’s not clear to me how you start a company anymore,” venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said this week on the All-In podcast in a discussion about rapidly expanding A.I. capabilities. “I don’t understand why you would have a 40- or 50-person company to try to get to an MVP [miniumum viable product]. I think you can do that with three or four people.”

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    Steve Mollman

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