It shouldn't matter if people work multiple jobs. The former VP of HR at Microsoft shares how to react to double dippers

It's completely accepted when CEOs and other executives serve on multiple boards or even run more than one company. Companies demanding 100% of any employee are just abusing labor and embracing unequal labor practices, and those practices aren't against any law, companies just make up their own 'policies' to try and make their own laws.
- Because we aren't people, we're meat machines. We don't deserve a living wage and it's expected of us to be working every second we're awake. Do you let your tools rest?

Couldn't you just pay them enough so that they don't need a second job?
- The article also quotes
  to "cheat" the system
  As if people working two jobs are stealing and not working in exchange for proper value of money.
  
  It's because the system is designed to keep us paid just enough to live and keep buying from companies, but not enough to have true independence. Working two jobs is cheating that system by giving you more money and freedom than they want you to have. Once you have financial security you can start to wonder about how fucked up this "system" truly is.
  
  It really should depend on the role. If part of your job is being available for inbound requests, or participating in group work of some kind, it seems reasonable to expect that during the business day you will be available and not randomly tied up with other commitments. It would be hard to have two such jobs.
  If it’s a task completion kind of job then it shouldn’t matter exactly when the tasks get done as long as they get done.
  But you should be able to have one “high availablility” job and one “task completion” job at the same time because your tasks can always be set aside if you are needed. Or two task completion jobs, for the same reason.
  In all events, the point is being able to perform your job without undue obstacles. If you can do that, and you’re meeting the goals and criteria set for you, nothing else should matter.
  
  I don't follow. If you're claiming you're putting 40 hours of work in a week, or that is what your contract says, and you're really only doing 20 because you're splitting it between two jobs...isn't that obviously cheating the system?
  Don't get me wrong, I don't give a shit if people take advantage of a corporation to milk it for cash, but it seems to me to be pretty clearly cheating the system. If you want to get paid on what you produce, and not the time you put in, then you should structure your contracts that I way. I know a lot of my side work I don't bill hourly precisely because I know it can be done quickly ( for me with experience) but it's worth more to them.
- Most of these people are over paid actually. Making without stock over 150k and then around the same in RSUs or more.
  The issue is many folks were only doing like 3 or 4 hr a day and then double dipped to collect another paycheck because they had the time to. I don't necessarily fault them.
  Friend of mine intentionally took a boring bank job making like 50k less than he was making (so around $125k a yr) so he could coast as a high performer there then planned and did find another gig in Pacific time (were east Coast) and then pulled two checks and still only worked like 42 hr a week.
  This is the true reason there making work from home optional.
  
  Are they overpaid, or is every other job underpaid? Seems weird to call them overpaid when the company is making a profit on them anyway.
  
  so they should just sit and stare if they’ve finished their work? don’t be absurd, please. the whole system is way past its due date. our society needs to scrap it and start over. and i mean human society. the world, our species. the one we have now if fast leading us to extinction, along with most of the other creatures on earth. what he says isn’t the way, but it’s better than harassing people for doing more work when they finish their first job.
  
  This is why we can't have nice things.
- sad to have to come this far down to see this.
  normalizing needing multiple jobs means soon we will be much more overworked....
- Why would they ever do that? Only reason they would even consider such thing if if they are forced or if it somehow directly benefits them short-term. Maybe not even short-term because not doing so helps keeping people suppressed and lessens any threats to them.
- I mean, yes-ish? My friend has 5 and makes way more than any one job would ever be willing to pay.
  More power to him. Is he burning bridges? Probably. Is he banking a ton of money? Yeah. Is anyone getting hurt? Not really, he gets his asks done and that's that - I'm not about to feel bad for a megacorp grossing hundreds of millions to billions a year.
  
  That smells like BS. No one can work 5 full time jobs and not be committing fraud somehow. Paying someone overseas to do the work, plagiarizing it, submitting the same work to more than 1 of them etc.

If someone is completing what you ask of them, the ONLY reason anyone would ever care about what they do with their time is ego. But muh underlings! But muh meeting attendees! But muh sense of power!
Dinosaur companies will continue to suffer as they should.
- Reminds me of the CEO who said working for a company should be viewed as a team sport and you should not help out another team. All while he is on the board of another company. Can't remember which CEO it was.
- I think it sounds way worse when you distill it.
  They want the power to take away your livelihood
- If you do everything you need to, are responsive to all communication, participate in group meetings, contribute to the business like everyone else I wouldn't know you have a second job and therefore wouldn't care. But this is a fake narrative because it's impossible to do that for two jobs at once. If it's not my company it's the other one that's being neglected. For certain projects work can be divided evenly, but when there are deadlines some people end up doing more otherwise we miss the deadline. So if one worker is slower the only alternative is fire them and that's not really something I want to do just because someone isn't as fast as something if they turn in good work. However if the reason it takes them so long is they are taking other work that's a completely different story.

Finally someone with authority says it!
Nobody would complain about a freelancer with multiple clients, even at the same time, provided they got their work done on time and on budget. Why isn’t it the same for employees? Why do bosses get to treat them like clients from hell?
- I'm not saying they're justified in this, because frankly if someone is getting their work done, what they do outside of work hours isnt their boss's business, but I can kinda imagine why a company might not like their employees to have a second job; people only have so much effort to give (consider all those stats people bring up whenever people talk about shortening the workweek, to the effect that working more hours diminishes productivity per hour and gives diminishing or even negative returns compared to fewer hours in many cases) and so a company might decide that an employee with a second job might not be as productive for them as they would be otherwise, due to being exhausted. Though really, if they do it's honestly the company's fault for paying so little as for someone to need a second job in the first place.
  
  CEOs and executives do this regularly, so unless their jobs are a lot simpler than they're claiming the "attention" argument is moot. They pay me to do a thing. I do the thing. They pay me what they'd say they'd pay. That's it.

FWIW, Microsoft explicitly allows having multiple jobs. Their policy basically amounts to "don't cross the streams".
- Their employees doing the absolute minimum would explain some things
  
  I would like it if Microsoft employees would do the absolute minimum. Every time they get an idea we end up with Cortana on desktop or moving the start button.
- Really? Brb, getting job at Microsoft...

they aren’t “double dipping.” that phrase means “taking more than you are allowed.” having a second job is just having a second job. the person writing the title either is tone def or doesn’t agree with the article.
- The double dipping is referring to doing both jobs simultaneously. Like two remote jobs and you have both work laptops open, so between two jobs you can work 40 hours per week but be paid for 80. It's distinctly different from clocking in for one job, then clocking out and going to another job and clocking in for that job.
  
  If both sets of 40 hours are meeting goals then the company can shut the fuck up, morally speaking.
  
  What if a compile job takes a long time? Would that be a good reason to context switch?
  
  If you're getting the work done you're getting the work done.
  Bottom line is that companies don't pay you for being more productive, so you have to pay yourself by working two at the same time and getting both done. If you fail to perform, sure, get fired. As long as the product is there, it's just a worker ensuring they are getting the money they deserve for their production capacity.
  
  Yeah but the alternative is that I spend the rest of the time on on here. If the company aren't keeping me busy that's their problem

The real question is why do people need 2 jobs? If its just ambition or wtv then ok, but if its out of the need to pay the bills and just get by, why is it happening? Or course its convenient for this mfers to say that. Better have people working multiple jobs to get by and keep their mouth shut then having them rebeling, joinin unions, protesting and so on.
- He is specifically talking about people who are able to work from home who are generally employed full time. However he does point to workers who absolutely need to work two jobs to make ends meet as a reason why it should be viewed as okay. That is definitely problematic. Those people working two jobs just to live would definitely prefer to work just one.
- I have a job where the unspoken agreement is they under pay you but you get to underwork proportionally to your favor. I'm more ambitious so I spend the free time on more work. I wouldn't be surprised if this is more of a benefit to software people than most workers
  
  They underpay you knowing you won't work as hard for them? I don't understand business owners.
- The type of worker that article is talking about don't. They are making $250,000 per job. People making too little to live off largely don't have jobs that you would lie about working 2 at the same time.

double dipper
I wanna laser focus in on this phrase in particular because I think it's bullshit. No one is double dipping, no one's getting paid twice to do one job. You do a job, it's to the satisfaction of your employer, they pay you. That is and has always been the deal. If I can do two jobs to the satisfaction of two employers I deserve and am entitled to two paychecks.
- Yeah but employers want to be the only party who can have their cake and eat it by giving one person the work of three people and calling them 'cross-trained.'
- The way employers work. There is no such thing as satisfied. By definition they want every single ounce of your existence to be spent on their enrichment. I'm pretty certain salaries were invented as a mental wedge to expect more and more for the same money.
- I think there are two different scenarios being conflated here. Having two jobs where you work 1, then work the other is overall fine. The issue is when you have two jobs that you work during the same time, in other words you work for both companies from 9-5 unbeknownst to those employers. If you'd like to do that you need to be an independent contractor or form your own company and do contracted work where the terms are entirely different between you and the company you do work for.
  
  If you're getting the work done for both jobs, what's the problem? If they want to double your workload, they can pay you double.
  
  Im not conflating anything. A job is an expectation of work to be done for a wage. I do the work, I get the wage. If the expectation is outlined at the beginning as the job monopolizing my time and me doing whatever work comes along when I'm on the clock, then that's the job I took and I need to be available to them. But in a lot of jobs the expectation is just to meet certain targets of work to be completed. If I meet those targets, the employer owes me the agreed upon wage. To imply that doing anything less than as much as humanly possible is some sort of fraud normalizes exploitation and abuse.
  If I pay the grocery store a dollar for an apple, am I entitled to as many apples as they can possibly deliver me? Obviously not.
  If I pay a worker a dollar for a task, am I entitled to as many tasks as they can possibly deliver me? A lot of employers seem to think so.

Sounds like there is a very easy solution to this : pay people more so they don't have to take a second job ?

Working multiple jobs is a part of the fabric of the working world
is this guy for real? is this a common thought in America?
Does it sound fucking dystopic only to me?!
- It's commonly accepted but not commonly enjoyed.
- I have met very few people in the USA that worked 2 jobs. I have never had more than one job at a time.
  Additionally, I have spent a couple decades in poverty and hanging around people of similar means while those conditions were true.
  
  Not even two part time jobs, or one full time the other part time?
  I have twice worked two jobs at once. Both times I was young, late teens/early 20s. Once I was working for one bike shop, but getting fed up with management, when the owner of another bike shop started hiring me on occasion when he needed extra help- which eventually led to me quitting the first shop and working at the second one full time. The other time, I was working for my uncle's construction business, and I took a second job at a video store one day a week mainly for the benefit of free movie rentals.

That or start paying a lot more.

I've been a lifelong student of management and a leader for over 40 years
A leader is someone people choose to follow... not a corporate lapdog with a fancy title that has been imposed on them.
- lifelong student
  So he's an eternal amateur, with all theory but no practical experience?
- Shit it's a good thing all the people this person was ever in charge of chose to quit instead of following them, right? Otherwise your semi-though-out comeback would be worthless.
  
  charge of chose
  Riiiight... because nobody is coerced to do anything in a capitalist society because starvation and homelessness is easy, isn't that so, genius?
  
  imagine not having to pay bills.

Not everyone wants to live with 10+ other people in a single apartment in San Francisco

A real CEO should make absolutely sure, that no employee has to work more than one job to be able to afford to live.
The US is just absolutely fucked in the head.
I don't know a single other country (to be fair i don't know many) where you couldnt survive if you had only one fulltime job.
- There's a difference between has to work a second job, and decides to. Some people preffer having more money at the cost of their free time.
  
  Jesse what are you talking about? That is not what the article is about. How is that relevant?
- While a problem, this one is covering high paid tech workers who are pulling $250,000 per job.

Undertone: We don't pay enough for one job to be enough. The correct response is to raise wages so people have free time.
- I only read to the break, but it sounds more like this is a case of someone WFH for multiple big tech companies to maximize income - someone who isn't interested in free time when they could be puling down multiple 6-figure jobs. There are several internet accounts of people working for MS and FB at the same time, pulling $200k+ from each.
  The implication of a double dipper is that they're really only giving 1/2 effort to each job, which is a reasonable assumption for the average person. Most people aren't productive more than 30-35 hours a week, regardless of the number of hours they mold a chair in the shape of their ass. This seems to be a "hey, maybe the employee isn't the problem" take - that you're paying for production, and if the products targets are hit you're getting your money's worth. Now, if they're not getting hit, or the management doesn't have enough experience to know how much effort (in work-hours/work-years) are needed on a job, that's a different problem which isn't a function of the WFH laborer.
  
  Lol you think anyone gives 100% effort to their job? Not even the CEO cares that much.
  
  Its this, and especially with WFH there are is a pretty large spectrum of "productivity" among users. Some people are much slower than others, but we don't fire them because of it. People that think it's ok to have 2 jobs at once as long as they "meet their expectations" seem to be applying hourly assembly line or warehouse performance metrics to much more subjective work. It just doesn't work that way. If my less productive employee does good work, albeit slower I don't think he should be fired. If I find out the reason he does it slower is he's working a second job while I wait for him, then that's a different story.
  
  they’re really only giving 1/2 effort to each job
  total possible effort from an employee is a shitty, exploitative way to measure job performance. is someone who sucks at 100% effort a better employee than someone who does an amazing job at 50% effort? better to measure it based on whether the job's requirements are being met. if they are, you get paid. if they are not, you get fired. as you said yourself: if the targets are being hit the employer is getting what they pay for, and they're entitled to no more than that.

- If you managed to do the work for both, they probably wouldn't mind. You wouldn't manage to do it tho.
  
  They def would mind

- Why?

Working a second job outside of the hours or scope of tour main job is one thing, but many people double dipping are literally getting paid by two companies for the same hours. That’s different imo.
- Like people who are the boards of multiple companies, in leadership roles in multiple companies, and pretty much anyone at the top of company structures?
  All that should matter is if they are doing what they were hired to do.
  
  No, not like your example. If a CEO is secretly serving on another companies board you may have a point, but we’re talking about people having two jobs with the clear implication that their employers don’t know it.
  “Doing what they are hired to do” is very often defined in employment agreements as working x number of hours. You can’t really say you’re doing what you’re hired to do if you take a second job that you perform during the same hours when you’re not allowed to under your agreement.
  If someone wants to work 9-5, then 5-1 and somehow can manage both that’s different. For liability sake alone it’s a problem.
- Not really. If they're fulfilling their contractual obligations to their employer(s), then who the hell cares?
  It's long past time that we stop treating employees like they're chattel of the company that they work for. You hire someone to do a job, which they either do to your satisfaction or not, but you don't own them and you shouldn't get to control the parameters of their life.
  
  They aren’t fulfilling their contractual obligations if they aren’t allowed to have a second job and are doing it anyway, so this notion is nonsense to begin with. If you get paid hourly you can’t be working for someone else while getting paid by the first company for the same time. For salaried, typically there are expectations of how long you’ll be working or even your availability.
  The company I work for has more than three decades of experience with WFH, and it’s almost always clear when someone is trying to double dip. It’s impossible to keep it hidden for long. Eventually you will have conflicting schedules, and excuses start piling up. Even if the work is good, very few jobs are done in a vacuum where you never need to talk to anyone or work things through. Most situations like that are handled by subcontractors who have all the freedoms you’re talking about. In fact the only situation I can even think of that would fit the mold of how work is being framed here is through contractors.
- If you CAN do both at the same time, who gets hurt?
  
  It’s preposterous to think you CAN simultaneously do so without impact either at all. All it takes is two meetings or two impromptu phone calls at once. You will choose one over the other, in which case the company you didn’t prioritize is hurt as well as the other employees that you’re collaborating with.
  Become a contractor if you want to double dip. You set your own schedule, work as many jobs as you want, and even get to choose your own raises.
  
  The other perfectly qualified person out of the job so that you could buy a second house?
- It depends on the terms of employment. If they are salaried, then there are no real work hours and just work to do. In general, if someone is salaried, they're paid to do a job not when they do it.
  
  They want it both ways - we are 'overtime exempt' because we're 'paid for the job' but also after the job is done - they think they own us.
  
  This is not true. Salaries only means your pay is decided on a yearly basis and divided into each paycheck and not calculated and tracked per hour. Other conditions of employment including working hours and specific job duties are all part of your employment agreement. If your agreement has no set hours of any sort or limitations for other work, then there’s no problem. If a company is going to agree to pay you a salary, they are going to set how many hours you should be working, and reasonably expect you not to be double dipping.
- If they can get their work done on time, and with appropriate quality, who cares? If they can't keep up with the workload, then they can get in trouble for that.
  
  The truth is they can't, and that's how they get caught, and why it comes up.
- Full time employees might have core hours and then flexibility outside of that. Otherwise, you do your work as quickly as possible and then outside of that is free time. Unless they are reusing the same work at two jobs, they likely are not double dipping. If their metrics are fine, there is no reason for a manager to care other than wanting to micro manage someone's life.
  
  To be clear: If you Tell two employers that you are working for them from 1pm to 2pm, you are double dipping. The title of the article doesn't line up with the content. Having a second job that you work outside of the hours / commitment of your first job is fine as long as you didn't agree not to do so with your first employer. If you want to work 9-5 earning 6 figures in a WFH white collar job, then go out and get a night job at Target and are somehow able to succeed during your first job the vast majority of employers aren't going to give a shit. The reason employers give a shit is this is a largely fake narrative. Studies have shown the 40 hour work week is too long. People working two jobs cannot keep it up for long and be as good at their jobs. Second, people are conflating having 2 separate jobs with working two jobs at the literal same time. Working 9-5 at two companies and juggling email and meetings between them. The article touches on this, but I completely disagree with the author. So much of business is based on collaboration that having to wait for a peer who is doing work for another company now costs the first company for every person that is waiting on them. Maybe 2% of my work can be done without a single other co-worker being involved in some way. During regular business hours the expectation is that you are being paid to work and collaborate with your co-workers on a regular basis outside of normal PTO etc.