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The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge
- mikeryan 10y agoIts funny with the rise of more remote work with flexible hours I wonder if there's not more then one person who's double dipping. I imagine a pretty good engineer could maybe work two full time jobs pretty easily remotely working 4-5 hours per day on each gig.
- vemv 10y agoThere's not much incentive to not do that simply as a freelancer instead, and being open about the having multiple clients. 3hours each and you could be totally productive (and not burnout)
- pinaceae 10y agowell, but freelancers pay their own healthcare, 401k, etc. if you're running two well-paying full employments with all benefits, you have a sweet gig going. only possible in the US due to the setup of healthcare and overall taxes, etc.
- lmm 10y ago> well, but freelancers pay their own healthcare, 401k, etc. And are paid more to compensate for it. Whereas if you're working for two employers you're "paying" for two sets of healthcare etc., which seems wasteful.
- 15thandwhatever 10y agoUS insurance carriers generally ask you to certify that you did not have insurance through another carrier/policy simultaneously (upon submission of a claim), as policies tend to have 100% coverage kick in on things like annual and lifetime maximum numbers. Double-dipping on insurance policies messes with their actuarial table calculations.
- sidlls 10y agoThat sort of certification is a practice that should be made illegal. I've just been bit by that when we transitioned my family from one earner's plan to the other. It created a pointless hastle for us and our care team. Insurers don't need to know if I have coverage through another insurer.
- emodendroket 10y agoYou could just tell whichever job has the worse benefits that your spouse's insurance handles it or whatever and continue on your way, probably.
- mikeryan 10y agoThats pretty simple to solve though, just decline coverage from the provider with the most limited coverage. This is pretty common as married couples usually only take the coverage from one spouse.
- zajd 10y agoIt's way harder to fake hours that need to be billed to someone, I assume anyone who's double dipping on jobs isn't actually trying to do 40 hours at both, they are trying to get paid to do 40 hours at both ;)
- applecrazy 10y agoCouldn't he also get his employment terminated at Apple? Because I'm pretty sure any company wouldn't let you work with the media whilst working with them under a standard NDA.
- whizzkid 10y agoThere is something fishy in this whole story. - You wouldn't risk your new position by not quitting your old one. - Apple would not want you to keep your old job since they want your focus on your new position. - Getting double salaries is not worth the paperwork headache of tricking the system. The only reason I can think of is, he would get some sort of extra pay from his old job if he would fulfil a time written on his old contract.
- excalibur 10y agoPure speculation, but it sounds to me like he may have been working on some kind of undercover exposé on Apple. While I don't see any evidence of this, his actions would make more sense in that light. But if so, it is unclear why nobody at the Verge seems to be in the loop.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoMaybe he's been infiltrating the Verge secretly working for Apple, and now the mission's done and he's ready to transition to official employment with Apple, he doesn't care what happens to his career at the Verge? (conspiracy intensifies)
- s_kilk 10y agoOr, he was instructed to infiltrate Apple by Verge, and was found out. The Verge burned him, he dropped out of Apple, hence why he's supposedly not on the payroll at Apple. I don't believe this of course, but hey, tinfoil.
- pkaye 10y agoBut if he was known publicly before this then Apple would have easily found out.
- s_kilk 10y agoMaybe, but what if Apple believed he had left his job at Verge? There wouldn't be any real reason to not take that at face value. Anyway, this theory is getting too convoluted, hence almost certainly false :)
- excalibur 10y agoHere's hoping somebody locates him, interviews him, and reports back with the full story.
- applecore 10y agoThe most hilarious aspect of this story is it took nearly two months before anyone noticed he was gone.
- JshWright 10y agoFrom the sounds of things, it was roughly a month ("[he] was not in contact with us through most of August and into September."). That's probably not super crazy for a reasonably senior writer working on "longish" form stuff. While a month is probably a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if a week or two usually passed without touching base. It might take a couple of those "week or two" cycles to notice someone hasn't checked in. The article also says it wasn't unnoticed, and that they tried to reach him several times in that period.
- mikeash 10y agoYes, it sounds to me like they noticed almost immediately, and just didn't figure out what was going on until a couple of months later because he didn't tell them what was going on.
- BlackjackCF 10y agoYeah. Also when your coworker stops responding or suddenly goes MIA, you don't automatically assume that they've picked up a new job.
- elicash 10y agoSometimes when an employee stops showing up and cuts contact, they are dealing with mental health issues and good employers see what accommodations can be made. In this case, it turned out to be something else, but that's why I wouldn't have rushed to fire if I were in HR at the Verge.
- 086421357909764 10y agoHow do we know he wasn't working at an Apple Store rather than Corporate? Apparently he wasn't in the corporate directory.
- misnome 10y agoThis was downvoted, but I recall it supposedly being an explicit condition of employment that you don't tell anyone that you are going to be an apple store employee?
- pmiller2 10y agoEven if true, this doesn't account for not mentioning that he was leaving his job at The Verge.
- NEDM64 10y agoApple stores are much of part of Apple, as their Cupertino campus. And Apple Store employees are directly employed by Apple.
- CameronBanga 10y agoApple Store employees are in the company directory.
- asendra 10y agoZiegler is not just any editor though. There has to be more to the story.
- jason_slack 10y agoThere is a bit more here: http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/23/the-verge-founding-member-chris-ziegler-worked-at-apple-for-two-months-before-leaving-website http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/23/the-verge-founding... but it doesn't really fill in all the gaps. Like where he is now, if he still works there, etc.
- guelo 10y agoI wonder how many other plants Apple has in the media.
- danso 10y agoIt's not uncommon for journalists to jump ship and work for the people they've covered. Numerous former newspaper colleagues of mine work as public information officers for the school districts and agencies they used to cover. This happens all the way up to the White House level. Questions of biased coverage in the months leading up to the switch are often justified and asked. But I've never heard of this kind of double-dipping. Other than the brief extra paycheck, this is all massive downside, particularly in media becomes the grist for another news cycle. The fact that he's also just gone silent on Twitter makes me think there is some other problem here.
- bsimpson 10y agoWhy is Gruber's link to a Verge article the one attached to this discussion? Why not the Verge directly?
- kylec 10y agoThe link was already posted a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12567848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12567848
- jordache 10y agoearth shattering news? Something something about a flavor of the month tech blog.
- espadrine 10y agoGetting a job is sometimes a way to write an in-depth article, as with this article: http://uk.businessinsider.com/i-drove-for-uber-for-a-week-heres-what-its-really-like-2015-2 http://uk.businessinsider.com/i-drove-for-uber-for-a-week-he.... However, it looks like nobody was able to reach him, which might mean he had an accident. Regardless, keeping coworkers in the dark is bad form, even if Apple was pressuring him to do so (which might not have been the case at all).
- zeropointmodule 10y agoMaybe he suffered a health issue after taking the Apple job but before officially quitting at The Verge.
- Overtonwindow 10y agoA more burning question is if this guy took a job at Apple, did he get so frustrated by Verge, or was so thrilled by the job at Apple, that he simply walked out and never looked back? That's one way to certainly burn a bridge.
- mankash666 10y agoReally? This is the kind of valleywag B.S. trending on HN? Why should developers care where zeigler works, or double works.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]