Overemployment - strategies used to collect multiple paychecks while WFH

[r32gojirra]

Overemployment refers to the practice of working multiple jobs on a full-time basis and collecting multiple paychecks without any of the employers knowing

Quite a fascinating way the millennials have found to stick it to Mr Shekelberg

Yes I’m impressed

The closest I ever came to this was spending majority of my work day studying or working on my business

But collecting multiple paychecks is really stepping up to another level

Some of the strategies include:

-putting a video of you on repeat as your background instead of going on camera
-how to manage background checks with new employers
-“freezing your TWN” whatever that means (from context I gather it freezes your tax information so employers can’t see what other sources of employment income you have)
-how to prevent access to your LinkedIn profile or explain why it hasn’t been updated with your new job
-scheduling your meetings for J1 on (say) Monday, J2 on Wednesday, etc…
-managing any days required in the office (including by just quitting that job if they try to force you back to the office in an inconvenient way lol)

They also give examples of getting fired from their jobs but not caring because they have J2, J3 etc

In addition they don’t care about bonuses, pay rises etc because they treat J2….n as their bonus lol


Cliffs: millennials are claiming back some of their dignity and financial independence by working multiple WFH jobs simultaneously

[OliverHeldens]

Lol, this type of stuff is why employers are making people come back to the office.

[HMFIC_BROWSIN]

There was a miscer who claimed (I know, I know) to have up to FIVE 6-figure jobs at once doing this.... Seemed plausible, but also wtf.

[r32gojirra]

Lol, this type of stuff is why employers are making people come back to the office.

… and provides the backstory for why the WFH employees tell them where to stick it

Zoomers +1, Shekelberg n-1

[r32gojirra]

There was a miscer who claimed (I know, I know) to have up to FIVE 6-figure jobs at once doing this.... Seemed plausible, but also wtf.

Seems like an exaggeration. I would be prepared to consider up to 3 as plausible at the maximum, and one of them would have to be like a cyber incident response job that had large slabs of downtime. Anything more than that, they are putting in additional hours which is more like having a second job as opposed to “Overemployment” in a strict sense

[6gorillion]

Lol, this type of stuff is why employers are making people come back to the office.

god forbid people be able to keep up with the outlandish cost of living!

[OliverHeldens]

… and provides the backstory for why the WFH employees tell them where to stick it

Zoomers +1, Shekelberg n-1

2020-2022 was a very unique time in employment worldwide. While I do think Zoomers will have more negotiating leverage in their careers with employers than others have had, the job market will not be strong enough for them for your regular bum to pull off multiple full time jobs.

[r32gojirra]

2020-2022 was a very unique time in employment worldwide. While I do think Zoomers will have more negotiating leverage in their careers with employers than others have had, the job market will not be strong enough for them for your regular bum to pull off multiple full time jobs.

Clearly this is not for the regular bum.

It requires a high level of organisation, strategic thinking, risk management capability and creativity to pull it off.

One of the “hacks” cited was, if you’ve scheduled a number of online meetings for one job, wear the company polo/logo top while in the zoom meeting. It creates a subconscious signal of commitment to the comapany lmaoooooooooool

[GHOSTEDMAYNE]

I might do this. I have nothing to do all day.

[Maestro]

been trying to do this for several months. hiring is seemingly at a freeze at the moment. Its not that i'm not qualified, but I keep either getting ghosted or notified that the role was "filled internally" It is the GOAT strategy to making money. A lot of people think being overemployed is working two jobs as in one in the AM and one in the PM but it truly means working two jobs simultaneously at the same time (as in TWO 8-5pm jobs)

As mentioned in the OP, you're not suppose to try hard at either of these jobs because if you are an overachiever then you'll be given more work which can take attention away from your other job.

Contrary to popular belief, its not illegal to have multiple jobs, but a grey-area can arise if you're working for two jobs that are competitors of one another (ex. working for both Pepsi and Coca Cola)

[SpeakethTruth]

Most employment contracts include a clause to the effect of 'you can't work for another company while employed with us'. OE really only works for senior software nerds or roles like scrum master where you don't much actual work.

[ltsOgre]

god forbid people be able to keep up with the outlandish cost of living!

Huh, where I live jobs pay way more than the cost of living. Must be a regional thing.

[SoutheastBeast1]

There was a miscer who claimed (I know, I know) to have up to FIVE 6-figure jobs at once doing this.... Seemed plausible, but also wtf.

It was 4.

I'm back down to 2 but interviewing to increase back up to 3. I quit one on purpose in the summer then one of the others eliminated my entire branch in October to cut it down further than I wanted. Imagine only having 1 job lmao never going back to 1.


I also have an unrelated part-time job with minimal hours that I guess did count as 5 in total for a period of time. I tell every employer about this part-time job though.

[6gorillion]

Huh, where I live jobs pay way more than the cost of living. Must be a regional thing.

Red

[SoutheastBeast1]

been trying to do this for several months. hiring is seemingly at a freeze at the moment. Its not that i'm not qualified, but I keep either getting ghosted or notified that the role was "filled internally" It is the GOAT strategy to making money. A lot of people think being overemployed is working two jobs as in one in the AM and one in the PM but it truly means working two jobs simultaneously at the same time (as in TWO 8-5pm jobs)

As mentioned in the OP, you're not suppose to try hard at either of these jobs because if you are an overachiever then you'll be given more work which can take attention away from your other job.

Contrary to popular belief, its not illegal to have multiple jobs, but a grey-area can arise if you're working for two jobs that are competitors of one another (ex. working for both Pepsi and Coca Cola)

Hiring has been at a freeze. Since I started looking again it's been tough to even get an interview. Very little is posted and most of what is posted are ghost ads. When I originally added my jobs up I was getting every single job I interviewed for so like you said it has nothing to do with not being qualified. My hope is the new year with budgets being created will open up some opportunities for hiring.


I also intentionally do not work for competitors/overlap in the same industry. Like you said it's not illegal to work more than one job. And as I said I actually flat out tell them about my part-time job. I just don't tell them about the other career positions because it's a gray area that they probably wouldn't like. They can't do anything other than fire me though, if they ever found out.

Also background checks don't reveal this stuff. They submit a check on the jobs you claim to have worked. They're not doing a blanket search that turns up everything. That's not how the background checks work to my knowledge (or if it does no one has given a flying f*ck and again what's the worst that happens... they don't hire you and you interviewed for nothing? That's no different than interviewing and getting rejected in the last round).

In a nutshell, a simple background check won't provide the hiring manager with a list of your previous employers. People leave jobs off their resumes all the time. As long as there's no obvious unexplained gap on your resume, it's unlikely that a potential employer will ever find out about these roles.

What a background check will flag, however, is the dates that you were employed in each role you’ve listed on your resume.

https://www.zipjob.com/blog/can-empl...0these%20roles.

I also only list years I was employed on my resume, not month, as a trick against that last sentence

[elterrible987]

That time came and went. That was after the US dumped 8 trillion dollars into the market, handed out free loans, rock bottom interest rates on and on. Companies went on a hiring spree to spend all the free money to be ready to expand/grow. Most of them later admitted that they overhired and a lot have done lay offs and are mandating everyone come back in the office atleast a few times a week which would be enough to disrupt anyone pulling that scheme.

The game dried up for a lot of people, a smaller percentage are still doing it.

[SoutheastBeast1]

That time came and went. That was after the US dumped 8 trillion dollars into the market, handed out free loans, rock bottom interest rates on and on. Companies went on a hiring spree to spend all the free money to be ready to expand/grow. Most of them later admitted that they overhired and a lot have done lay offs and are mandating everyone come back in the office atleast a few times a week which would be enough to disrupt anyone pulling that scheme.

The game dried up for a lot of people, a smaller percentage are still doing it.

Wrong. There will always be a competitive advantage for this so there will always be opportunities to do it from here on out. Companies now know it's an attractive feature to land top talent. At the end of the day as long as they feel the work you're expected to complete is getting done no one cares if you're solely dedicated to them. Sh*t I work in a field where it's not uncommon for team members to casually chat about freelancing in their spare time on projects. Sure it's not admitting to being fully employed by someone else but it's work you're doing away from the company.

People working multiple jobs is not a new thing. Working full time multiple jobs? Sure that's not as common but if you're still meeting requirements no one is going to track you down and call you out. There are some professions out there that have people working upwards of 80 hours a week, mostly medical, but the point is it's not unrealistic to work multiple full time jobs and most companies have no business getting upset unless it's for a competitor. As long as you meet expectations for them, that's what they focus on.

I wouldn't go around flaunting it either but just do you and make sure no one is upset with the work you deliver at the each one.

[amusclehead]

threads like this make me happy that I got rid rid all of my staff (either by firing them or letting them walk after refusing to pay them more) back in 2021 .... I honestly can't believe how much free time I have by not having to babysit people to make sure they're working and instead just get the work done myself ... and margins have never been higher

+1 for Mr. Shekelberg

[6gorillion]

threads like this make me happy that I got rid rid all of my staff (either by firing them or letting them walk after refusing to pay them more) back in 2021 .... I honestly can't believe how much free time I have by not having to babysit people to make sure they're working and instead just get the work done myself ... and margins have never been higher

+1 for Mr. Shekelberg

If you can't set up realistic KPIs that can discern whether or not the person brings you value/is truly doing their job, they were never needed/helpful in the first place. That's you being a dumbass.

[Maestro]

If you can't set up realistic KPIs that can discern whether or not the person brings you value/is truly doing their job, they were never needed/helpful in the first place. That's you being a dumbass.

one of the more important rules of being OE, is to make sure you're choosing large companies to work for so you're just a number in a large group of people. If you're working for some small "start-up" with less than 50 people you're bound to be in the spotlight with a some boss/supervisor breathing down your neck every 15 minutes asking for favors/questions, but if you're in some company with 500+ employees, you can potentially go days or even weeks without ever speaking to upper management.

[r32gojirra]

If you can't set up realistic KPIs that can discern whether or not the person brings you value/is truly doing their job, they were never needed/helpful in the first place. That's you being a dumbass.

^^^this

So basically he was paying a bunch of people for however many years who apparently created zero value

Sounds like Shekelberg took another big L here

[r32gojirra]

Most employment contracts include a clause to the effect of 'you can't work for another company while employed with us'. OE really only works for senior software nerds or roles like scrum master where you don't much actual work.

Restraint of trade clauses are basically unenforceable

So the key is to not let them find out in the first place

But if they do, there’s not a lot they can do about it, except fire you (but that’s maybe J1 out of 3 so who cares)

[r32gojirra]

one of the more important rules of being OE, is to make sure you're choosing large companies to work for so you're just a number in a large group of people. If you're working for some small "start-up" with less than 50 people you're bound to be in the spotlight with a some boss/supervisor breathing down your neck every 15 minutes asking for favors/questions, but if you're in some company with 500+ employees, you can potentially go days or even weeks without ever speaking to upper management.

I think the other key factor is just being highly productive.

If you know your job well often times you can just complete a given task in significantly less time compared to other people.

Now, if you just have 1 job, the reward for being highly productive is to be given more work.

Across multiple jobs, you can be rewarded with more paychecks.

[Bando]

I could likely get away with this if I had enough ambition. My question is what about your equipment? I have a full WFH home set up from J1, wouldn't J1 IT wonder why I'm logging into another company's server a few hours a day and have a VPN installed for another company?

[6gorillion]

I could likely get away with this if I had enough ambition. My question is what about your equipment? I have a full WFH home set up from J1, wouldn't J1 IT wonder why I'm logging into another company's server a few hours a day and have a VPN installed for another company?

Is this a srs post?

You would have 2 different laptops from different jobs.

[Bando]

Is this a srs post?

You would have 2 different laptops from different jobs.

Ahh OK. My J1 is actually a pretty significant setup that mirrors the one in my office. Technically I can just plug another computer into it, but everytime my Son has plugged into it, it's a 2 day process to get my screens, display, camera, headphones & VPN working properly again.

[r32gojirra]

Ahh OK. My J1 is actually a pretty significant setup that mirrors the one in my office. Technically I can just plug another computer into it, but everytime my Son has plugged into it, it's a 2 day process to get my screens, display, camera, headphones & VPN working properly again.

Yep if that was a serious question I don’t think OE would be for you

[volleys]

Employers shouldn't give a **** as long as the work gets done. If anything, this proves that 90% of white-collar jobs are a huge waste and are expendable.

[8pieces]

considering so many jobs have people barely working. I see this very manageable but it would be essentially be like working none stop. whereas if you worked just one you just chill most of the day

[Bando]

Yep if that was a serious question I don’t think OE would be for you

Probably not. But you better be pretty good at figuring out your own IT chit if considering this.

I do database, cloud+server, excel, complicated mail merges, but when I plug in my machine and it doesn't work, it takes about an hour before I turn into a full potato.

If you can literally just use 2 laptops and the tiny screens, it's a sweet hustle.