I found out 3 of my contacts were overemployed, I bribed them with beers and chicken wings for some insights, and here are the real insights from 3 cases who hold 2 full time jobs or more.
Over Employment is defined as holding two or more full time jobs at a time. So here I am, poundering over the ethical and practical questions of Over Employment.
There are two kind of Over Employment. The first is an honest, Traditional one. You work job 1 during the week, take job 2 on the evening and weekend. This isn’t new. 7% of labor force were overemploying in 1996. AI and remote work made it much easier now than ever, which leads to the second definition. We will only be discussing the modern definition of Over Employment today.
Modern Overemployee take two jobs, at literally the same time. Case 1 in my deep interview is in IT security. In his job 1, he spends the day hoping around various Linux server, looking at logs and finding vulnerabilities, ocassionally resetting password and turn systems off and on again. Job 1 is on premise only, and is easy if it’s done right. As long as there’s no mishap, the day is pretty slow. He takes on the second job, Job 2 is also IT security, but remote and only involves looking over several AWS server, backing up datas, occassionally recover files. He spends the slow time during job 1 to work on job 2. This is the definition of moonlightning.
Here’s how you can do what he does
1) Be very efficient at a job
2) Tell no body in job 1 or job 2 about OE
Here’s what could possibly go wrong: Security emergencies happened at both job, at the same time, and he will surely fail at either job. He’s sure this wouldn’t happen because he believes he’s great at what he does.
I think it’s ethical and reasonable for him to hold both jobs. 80% of data security isn’t about doing the actual work, it was about learning new vulnerabilities, and that part of the job scale very nicely.
The second case is in ecommerce. She does social marketing for Job 1, and then she also does social marketing for job 2. She’s great at her job, but the problem is, employer 1 and employer 2 are in the same industry. This is an ernormous ethical issue. The trend, the insight, the research she gets from either job are now available to the competitor. If the employer 1 and 2 have proper legal conselling, the lawyer would have advised every employee signing an NDA/ NCA.
Both jobs are remote, both jobs are done using AI. Once she’s tweaked the prompt for job 1, it takes her almost no time to replicate the same content for job 2. Maybe job 1 and 2 never finds out, but if they do, my friend is in gross violation of NDA and would most certainly lose the lawsuit. Being fired isn’t as scary as being sued for breaching NDA.
The last case is in HR. My friend does HR for two big production facilities. With AI automating most of her work, she was able to take on second jobs. She has been doing most of her work at home and be in office for occasional meetings. She started sometime in 2023. Aside from ocasional scheduling conflicts, it has been pretty easy. The problem is, job 1 and job 2 are in the same industry and in this industry people switch job often. One time, she had interviewed someone for hire at job 2, only to also see the same guy name in the list for promotion at job 1. Now this becomes an ethical and legal dilema. Should she acted on the knowledge that the guy might quit any time, or should she ignored it. What if the situation was reversed: my friend knows someone has been stealing in company 1 and then he shows up to interview at company 2. If she acted on her existing knowledge and not hire, he might sue for breaching confidentiality; if she ignored the knowledge and knowingly hire a bad employee she would be a bad HR.
I had no advice for the third friend. If I were in her situation, I might have done the same. The core problem I see is company being very bad at identify and promoting talents. People who can do several jobs at once clearly have room to grow. It is so very rare to find talents. Companies look at spreadsheets, not capabilities and that’s why some people exceed the numbers wouldn’t want to be there.
I used to work four jobs at once (2 full time, 2 part times), right after college. I do IT supervisor 9-5, waiting table in the weekend, run Uber at night, and started an Ecommerce during work hour at job 1. I think I could have been very successful at job 1 had I put all my time and energy to it. BUT the boss at job 1 wasn’t worthy of my life or dedication. One time, I wrote a python scripts to automate printing labels for thousands of clients. I replaced 2 weeks work of labor for an entire team with 2 hours of printing. And my reward? NOTHING. Not a raise, not an ackowledgement. One other time, I composed, designed, and print an entire magazine to promote the business. It could have been a great magazine had we kept it up. But after the first issue, there was no raise in my salary, so I quit doing it.
I am still doing multiple jobs. I am managing a nail salon, running a printing company, and doing ecommerce. I am also doing IT consultation for a merchant service business, and marketing consultation for an ecommerce store. Everyone in every job knows I am OE, and nobody cares.
So my advice to you, readers. Don’t focus on the job, focus on your career. Be so great at something, that no body gives a shit about anything else.
About the author : Zoom N. Dang
