Cutting Edge Computing

On Work and Life August 16, 2021

A recent Wall Street Journal article (paywall) focused on work from home employees who were actually working two or more full-time jobs, without their employers’ knowledge.  Scott Adams actually touched on this topic with a recent Dilbert, which has Wally engaged in two Zoom calls at the same time.

The comments are more interesting than the article. The majority of the comments are negative, and they seem to overwhelmingly come from a certain demographic (to be fair, my demographic). Those of us who came of age in the ’60s and ’70s internalized the righteousness of loyalty to our employer. This was, of course, when many people expected to have 1-2 employers in a career.

That started to fall apart in the 1980s and beyond with massive layoffs, so those that came of age then and later probably have a more cynical viewpoint. The employment contract has changed, and this small number of employees are taking advantage of that. I can’t fault them, though many commenters were aghast, calling it a brazen fraud.  But over the last 30 years, you could lose your job at any time, for any reason, so why not have a spare.  Even seeming secure jobs could disappear at the loss of a contract, or the capriciousness of management.  I have rarely had a job (or in many cases even a company) that lasted more than a few years.

Surely there are a lot of pros and cons here.  If they are doing the work expected of them, it seems difficult to find fault.  It feels a little bit sleazy, but maybe that’s just my cultural heritage.  Many younger workers today are used to the gig economy, where they juggle several projects from different employers.

Those who are doing so make good points.  Much of their time is consumed in pointless meetings, so they endeavor to minimize those meetings in order to work more efficiently.  If their main employer forces pointless (and yes, many meetings are), meetings, and work that will just be tossed aside, this is a way for employees to fight back.  I have some semblance of a moral code, but it never really extended to anything like this.

I moonlighted for much of my career, rarely if ever working on my extracurricular activities from the office, but spending plenty of evening and weekend time on it.  My employers (or at least my manager) generally knew, although certainly no one made a big deal out of it (well, one did).  But almost all thought it best to remain quiet about my outside gigs.  Those gigs were highly visible in the industry, and could have brought credit upon my employers, if they cared.  They didn’t, so I did them anyway.

So I’m not sure this is wrong in many ways.  I feel for those who are in their early careers, perhaps already laid off several times, who are striving for the semblance of a real career (don’t feel bad; I didn’t have a real career).  I think they are the ones who can look the Man in the eye and give him the finger.