"A small, dedicated group of white-collar workers, in industries from tech to banking to insurance, say they have found a way to double their pay: Work two full-time remote jobs, don’t tell anyone and, for the most part, don’t do too much work, either.
Alone in their home offices, they toggle between two laptops. They play “Tetris” with their calendars, trying to dodge endless meetings. Sometimes they log on to two meetings at once. They use paid time off—in some cases, unlimited—to juggle the occasional big project or ramp up at a new gig. Many say they don’t work more than 40 hours a week for both jobs combined. They don’t apologize for taking advantage of a system they feel has taken advantage of them."
Apparently there is a forum for people to discuss how to best go about doing it: 1) How to log on to multiple meetings (try not to say as much as possible), 2) Avoid unnecessary meetings, 3) how not to get on very time consuming projects, 4) what happens if you are caught…
There was a woman who said she put a big mirror in front of her so her image could be projected onto both work laptops (meetings). One person said he was caught by one manager, but because it was such a tight job market the manager decided not to fire him in fear of losing a head count.
Another person said he hired an assistant to go to some meetings for him to take notes.
The worst case scenario is they should get caught or get overwhelmed, and the solution is they could always quit one job.
It is not ethical at all, but I was laughing at some of those stunts people have pulled.
Oh, I’d get so confused and say the wrong thing in a meeting or something equally stupid. Send out a wrong email. LOL. I’d have to have literally two separate work areas very distinct from one another at the very least. Two meetings at once? Can you imagine. I can’t wait to talk to my three working from home sons about this.
If you can do the job satisfactorily in less than the expected hours, why not? Family members have done this without issue. It works especially well if one job is as an independent contractor (IC) since independent contractors have control over their specific work hours. For example, main job is on East Coast, IC job is on West Coast. IC accepts no meetings before 12pm Eastern and pushes West Coast meetings to after 5pm Eastern, whenever possible.
I had an employee that drove Uber during lunch and long breaks during the day. She’d be gone gone for 2+ hours at lunch sometimes. Put her on tracking and was about to fire her but she got another, higher profile corporate job.
It’s also interesting which companies require cameras on during Zoom and which don’t. These multitaskers definitely don’t want cameras on.
This reminds me of a woman in my home city (a large midwestern city), she had a high-up job in our city school district, maybe Treasurer? Then ALSO took a high up job in a school district in another state, that was remote due to covid. She was fired from the original job when she was found out. Taxpayers were pretty mad.
It is a fad for tech startups to offer unlimited time off… meaning no paid vacation time, and even if one takes time off, she will be expected to attend all meetings etc.
Big changes with COVID, I guess. I’m pretty familiar with the legal profession, and am not aware of any in-house jobs where you can disappear for an unlimited amount of time; those used to be worker-bee 9 to whatever jobs like everybody else employed by that company.
And for law firms, it was always “you can take as much time off as you like” so long as you bill X hours(which would require 60-80 or so hours a week).
In neither case is the employee able to access “unlimited” time off…not if they want to get paid and remain employed, anyway.
At least one of the lawyers I know bill in 15 min. increments, no matter if you spend 3 min. or the full 15 min. on the phone. I think that is standard practice, and to some extent I understand it since each call also takes time to document, and a bit of time to change direction between calls. BUT, it is also aasy to bill much more than an 8 hour day that way. If very busy, and very effecient, that can also be very lucrative.
In banking they make you sign a disclosure of any company/organization you have relationships with, even non paying ones, to prevent conflict of interest, but a lot of other industries do not have such requirement.
I am very busy at work, but I could disappear for hours without people knowing.
This isn’t really new. I’ve never had a limit on vacation time either working in biglaw or in-house for decades. Some years I take many weeks of vacation. Other years only a few. I took more than some and far less than others. And no one cares. Also 60-80 hour weeks consistently was not required to meet billable requirements and still take time off. Sure, juniors at some firms probably have less freedom, but in my experience, at upper levels, the non-workaholics take advantage of this perk. If you choose the right firms, you can still enjoy lots of vacation time; I did.
Lawyers used to be able to double bill quite easily. Ex., while traveling for a client, you could spend the airplane time working on another client’s file. Bill both. That is no longer ethical and even attorneys can’t have more than 24 hours in a day.
My daughter doesn’t have unlimited time off, but she has to bill 2000 hours a year, so even in weeks with holidays she has to work the 40 hours. When she’s going on vacation, she builds up time. I actually think it is very unfair because she basically has no holidays or vacation or sick time. Before covid, it was very hard for her to work at home as it required taking a huge tower computer home. Now it is very easy for her to work an extra hour at night or on weekends. It also helps that they have tons of work right now so no one is fighting over projects.
More like the PTO is not tracked for the purpose of staying within a limit, although time off still needs to be requested and approved (so that others do not expect meeting attendance during that time). In practice, employees tend not to take “excessive” amounts of PTO that would result in not getting the work done.
For the company, this also means that they do not have to account for unused PTO liability for employees who take less PTO than whatever limit they might specify.
We also must notify our employer if we take any kind of second job - even if it’s just working at McDonalds on the weekend or selling Mary Kay. It’s in the handbook we all sign. It’s a fireable offense if you don’t let them know - I have seen it done - though I doubt they would really do it for McDonalds. It’s more for conflict of interest purposes, and also that you will be able to work your required schedule.
No, ucb, it is definitely NOT like that. I have family members working for such startups. Of course they have to notify their teams about those times when they would not be reachable (no cell reception, for example), but otherwise they are expected to be “on” 24/7 even when they are on “vacation.” There are NO official PTO days. Zero.
It is indeed spelled out as “unlimited” in the job offers. But the reality is that the “perk” turns into not being able to be away for any meaningful amount of time. It works for some though, to be able to take a few hours a day here and there without losing a full day of PTO.
There’s a difference-a big difference-in taking a lot of time off vs. working two full time jobs simultaneously(which is what the article says some white collar workers are doing). I don’t believe anyone can work honest hours in two full time legal jobs, either in private practice or in-house.
Nobody’s talking about taking “lots of vacation time”; it’s working two full time jobs.
I’d also note that for attorneys, billing two(or more) clients simultaneously has been declared unethical for decades(from 1993):
But the reality is that the “perk” turns into not being able to be away for any meaningful amount of time. It works for some though, to be able to take a few hours a day here and there without losing a full day of PTO.