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Employee works for both Google and Facebook from home
- justinclift 6y agoFor me, that just shows "Something went wrong" and doesn't load the tweet content. Tried reloading the page a few times, same problem.
- mayneack 6y agoSame here, it's something wider than just this tweet. I get the same on the timeline. Link preview in slack works, however. Here's the tweet text: "A friend of a friend at Google interviewed at Facebook right as the virus hit. Accepted new job in March. Didn’t quit old job. Apparently does both jobs at home in 55 hours/week. Neither company knows yet. Might have reversed the co’s, not sure. I have so many thoughts on this."
- DennisAleynikov 6y agotwitter seems to be over capacity at the moment I got an error message to try again in a moment. weird, as it was just working a second ago before the errors started piling up
- wittekm 6y agoplus one, also having twitter issues besides this tweet
- xiaolingxiao 6y agoMaybe the employee should work at Twitter too :)
- INTPenis 6y agohttps://nitter.net/arrington/status/1311520168200163328 https://nitter.net/arrington/status/1311520168200163328
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ivanche 6y agoSeems legit. /s "Friend of a friend" - nothing suspicious there, it must be true. "Might have reversed the co's" - yup, might or might not, 100% true story. edit: And a bit further down the thread: "I don't know him." In some remote case this is true, 2 full-time contracts can be downright illegal to have. And tax office might be very interested at the end of the year.
- INTPenis 6y agoYeah, best to remain skeptical. This seems like perfect material for a modern urban legend. It's definitely plausible but not sustainable. If found out they might lose both jobs and alienate themselves from two major players in the IT business.
- spuz 6y agoAnother person in that thread said they did the same thing for 6 months during the quarantine. At least two other folks on that thread have said they know someone who did the same thing.
- mtnGoat 6y agoI don't know of any laws in the US preventing this. Unless one contact barred you from the other, in which case it would be civil.
- animationwill 6y agoIm not a tax lawyer or accountant but I don't see the IRS getting involved here either, nor it raising red flags, unless this went on for greater than a year. A W2 doesnt indicate the dates you worked for an employer, though the stock vesting would indicate overlap. Not sure about California tax forms though.
- rajup 6y agoMaybe not illegal from a tax point of view but illegal as hell for someone on a H1B visa (which quite a significant number of employees in these companies have).
- uniqueid 6y agoWhy? Why would someone do that? Does Hell have a VIP area?
- matz1 6y agoProvided he/she can manage it, Why would someone not do that ?
- dbbk 6y agoI can only think of the short-term money as the motivator
- mtnGoat 6y agoGreed! Mixed with some possible stupidity.
- toolz 6y agoI fail to see how upholding two contracts is unethical in the slightest. Do you think a company should be able to pay groups of people similar compensation but hold the rights to each individuals peak performance? I'd suggest it's very greedy for already megarich companies to expect anything beyond meeting the obligations specified in the contract.
- eythian 6y agoIt depends, for example I have to get approval for any second jobs to my employer. This is certainly in part for competition reasons, but it's also so they can ensure that I'm not materially increasing my risk of burn-out, which would cost them (and I think they have a legal obligation to ensure I'm remaining healthy within their scope, though I'm not sure where the boundaries of that lie.) So if I said I was doing 5 hours or so per week for something else unrelated to my company, it'd probably be fine. If I instead was doing 30, there'd be cause to not give me approval, or step me down to reduced hours with them, or similar.
- toolz 6y agoI think you mean well, but that's a strawman. If your contract obligates you to let your employer know of other jobs you'd be in breech of contract. It's not okay to just assume these people are in breech of contract just because you might be if you did the same. As for future risk should a company be able to limit you from partying on a sunday simply because statistically you'd probably perform worse on monday? If that clause is not in the agreed employment contract then the company gets no say in what you do on sunday, right? It's amazing to me that people feel so morally beholden to companies that would dispose of them the second it would be obviously profitable to do so. Companies feel no moral obligation to employees, they behave just as ethically as the workforce and consumers demand they behave. They do not volunteer extra consideration just because it might feel right. The idea that any employee should afford them extra consideration beyond their contract is arguably wrong and potentially unethical. If the workforce holds that employees owe companies more than they receive, would that workforce not be partially responsible for setting up unfair relationships and toxic work environments?
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago>Michael Arrington >I don’t feel like I have any responsibility to protect him here. Hey anonymous programmer dude scamming the big COs, the friend of your friend is your for reals enemy!
- deepsun 6y agoWhy scamming? It's absolutely legal, and I'd say even good, to work at multiple companies. Naming it "full-time" doesn't change it, it's only name. It's up to employer to evaluate their work and decide if it meets employer expectations.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agothe scamming was somewhat humorous, but aside from that if an employee of mine was also working for one of my direct competitors I would not be happy no matter how good their work was, especially as it would probably have the potential of opening me up to liabilities (and of course opening up my competitor to liabilities, but I worry about mine not theirs so much)
- bluedevil2k 6y agoHe claims he doesn't have any any responsibility to protect him, but he feels free to blast it on Twitter to his thousands of followers. If someone felt they had no responsibility, they'd just keep quiet. Arrington felt the need to snitch on this guy and ruin his livelihood...for what? What does Arrington gain from snitching?
- asdfman123 6y agoThis is sort of brag, but it's also sort of funny if you know my brother: he both works for a high profile think tank and a high profile consulting firm full time remotely. He's also running a charity org in his free(?) time. It's hilarious too because despite how impressive that sounds he is the most ADHD and scatterbrained person I know. He is incapable of any sort of organization in his life. I think he manages his dysfunction by channeling his hyperfocus into his work. I have ADHD too, and it's unfortunate that my brain seems to want to channel my hyperfocus into arguing about random things on social media instead.
- animationwill 6y ago> high profile think tank and a high profile consulting firm The high profile consulting firm probably takes up the majority of his week. What's his role at the think tank? I've looked at some staff there and they just seem to do "research" and then write "articles" that they publish for their own prominence. So doing both may be reasonable.
- asdfman123 6y agoI have no idea what he actually does for either of them, because he's very hard to get in contact with, and after writing my previous comment it suddenly makes sense why.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago> I have ADHD too, and it's unfortunate that my brain seems to want to channel my hyperfocus into arguing about random things on social media instead. Too relatable
- dirtnugget 6y agoI don’t have ADHD, however I am bipolar with strong tendency to mania. Whenever it hits I also get into scattered hyperfocus. People thought I had ADHD. I had to get rid of all social media because the things I shouted into it had a really bad effect on people around me. Living without social media these days can be challenging, but I am not looking back. Now I can actually freelance while having 3 customers at once.
- vsareto 6y agoDo Google/FB have an agreement clause to only work at one job? Seems like if you didn't agree to be exclusive, you should be able to do this as long as the work is getting done.
- sjg007 6y agoProbably, at the very minimum it is with respect to intellectual property. Of course it wouldn't matter b/c you can be fired for any reason.. but maybe the worker could claim that's not a legal reason to fire them. It would be interesting litigation though if they are exempt salaried workers.
- cletus 6y agoExclusivity is a pretty standard clause on such employement contracts.
- johnward 6y agoThis was has been my experience with other firms like IBM. I remember it being stated in my employment agreement that I needed permission to work a second job. It even limited your open source exposure. Whether it could be legally enforced is a different matter.
- ryandrake 6y agoAnd if not exclusivity, they likely both have the standard anti-moonlighting, broad IP assignment clauses that we have all come to love: "Anything you produce using company equipment or your own equipment, on company time or on your time, belongs to us." All jobs I've had for the past decade come with something like that.
- gok 6y agoI heard a legend of someone who, through acquisitions and lax work-from-home auditing, actually held two positions at the same employer. By working for different international subsidiaries and using different spellings of his name, he got away with it for years.
- bevacqua 6y agoI wonder what Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have to say about this!
- asaph 6y agoFor Elon Musk, working at only two companies would be a substantial reduction in employers. He currently works for Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink and OpenAI. * Update: Apparently Elon quit OpenAI. So let's not count that one. But even 4 employers is still a lot!
- C1sc0cat 6y agoElons probably not an employee, directors are different
- sjg007 6y agoDirectors really aren't different and in fact one would argue have access to even more sensitive information. In that light, work 2 jobs if you want! I guess the only issue is that a director would have informed his official employer of the engagement.
- deepsun 6y agoI don't understand why people assume it's scamming or cheating. It's perfectly legal, and I'd say it's even good for country economy. The employer might state that "it's our mutual understanding" about anything in job offer, but it's not a legally binding statement. Anti-competitive statements can be binding, though, so it might be illegal for them to work at FB and Google, as their business might intersect. But it's a different story than just right to hold two "full-time" jobs. One possibility I might think of -- if an employee is really a high performer, but couldn't negotiate compensation above "market price" for their level.
- digi59404 6y agoIs it legal though? As a salary paid employee you're a legal representative of the company, you're covered by indemnity and liability protections by law. If you work for two companies in a salaried position, then you're potentially violating the law there. If you're a hourly employee and you claim the same hour for two employers, You're potentially committing fraud.
- cblconfederate 6y agothere are 24 hours in a day though. And people have been working 2, even 3 jobs since forever, especially low-paid ones. Most tech workers were privileged enough to never experience it tho.
- nhumrich 6y ago2 or three, _hourly_ jobs.
- digi59404 6y agoHourly, yeah, I mean You can split it up, and not be working the same job in the same hours. Perfectly legal and acceptable, albeit not healthy. So it's not fraud. But Salary, That's a different animal. Yes there are 24 hours in a day, but if you're Salary you're a legal representative for that company and covered under many employment laws because of that, for all 24 hours. So - I have doubts as to whether having two salary job is legal, even if you're working 12-8 and 8-4.
- branweb 6y agoAside from the legality, what does this say about whatever role the friend was doing (assuming this is true of course)? I've heard from friends who work at FAANG that it's fairly easy to hide in the bureaucracy and do no real work. I've also heard the opposite, but perhaps the widely varying experiences are to be expected at a large company.
- user5994461 6y agoThe difficulty is that you need to do nothing from the start and forever, to not be noticed. As soon as as you start doing anything or replying to an email (definitely don't send any email), people will notice you and they might come back to you for it or for something else. This also precludes working for some high visibility projects or parts of the organization. Better be on a pet project that nobody uses or cares about.
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago> The difficulty is that you need to do nothing from the start and forever, to not be noticed. Wouldn't the manager notice?
- ffggvv 6y agohaving worked at them its 100% possible. esp at google because they dont really fire anyone or give them bad ratings.. literally low single digit percents. A large percent of google is coasting... they just have 1 job fb actually does fire people but its still not hard to get by.
- notional 6y agoIt's normal if you work two blue collar jobs but two programming jobs and now people in here saying they should be investigated by the IRS, c'mon what are you doing. And this tweet, if true, what a weird way to snitch on someone trying to work.
- birdyrooster 6y agoIt's not normal to work two full time blue collar jobs. They wear you out. You don't have the energy. This original post is unbridled greed and while legal, it further cements my opinion about this industry and who it serves in society. It's a wealth transfer to the already wealthy and well connected. The work is laughably easy and the pay is at least an order or magnitude better than the average. The demographics skew hard towards white males. The reason people start talking about going to the IRS is because they see the inequality and want someone to do something -- even though there is nothing they can do.
- sjs382 6y agoMaybe not normal but it's definitely common. That's splitting hairs though—conversationally, they're a bit interchangeable.
- birdyrooster 6y agoAh yes, I meant common. It is not common that people have two 40+ hour blue collar jobs. Not at all. I would agree if you said its common to have two (nearly full time) part-time jobs at 30-35 hours per week each.
- asdff 6y agoWell yeah, because most blue collar jobs don't want you to be classified as a full time employee. It's still de facto a full time job even if you are only on the time clock for 38, imo.
- 6y ago
- kpennell 6y ago"They didn’t call him Steve Job." had to share that...
- cblconfederate 6y agoMA: > Oh yes. A lot of people have zero social media in tech. I look forward to the day I can delete all this bullshit . I like this quote. Isn't this kind of work the kind we should expect as more and more people are working remotely? More of them will choose to go with gig work / independent work in order to arbitrage if they can do it, particularly the good ones. If implemented correctly this could be a huge boon to workers, and will take some powers away from employers.
- dilyevsky 6y agoI knew a guy years ago who after catching wind of mass layoffs went and got another job without notice to his current employer. Then he just came back to his old office for three months and worked from his new corporate laptop and even took remote conference meetings until eventually getting laid off (with huge severance) along with everybody else.
- rsamp 6y agoI've been doing this for 2 years, except I have 3 positions not two. Also all 3 pay really well, but they are all small companies (less than 20 employees). All three are distributed teams with no offices. I learned a long time ago when I was assigned a task, if I concentrated I could get my days work done in 2/3 hours, sometimes less. If it was a large task that was supposed to take a month, I could do it in two weeks. I dont believe this is because Im special in any way, I just think people slack off and generally lose too much time at work. Obviously I didn't start with 3, I had 1 and noticed I had a lot of downtime and applied and was selected for a second job. At first I was very nervous I had taken on too much, but after a few weeks it became clear I could finish both in about 6 hours a day. I then added the third, and usually I can finish everything in 8/9 hours. Ive gotten into trouble a few times where things piled up and I had to work all through the weekend, but its rare. Its also happened where I finish all my works' week by Wednesday and have Thursday and Friday pretty much off. I dont get into trouble with meetings because all 3 jobs dont have that many (1 or 2 per week) and since the teams are distributed theres always some room for scheduling effectively. At one point I even got a 4th job, that immediately was too much and I resigned after a week. Final note, I see nothing immoral about this. I want to make money and keep busy, if I end up paying the price by pulling some all nighters or long weekends I accept that, and have done it. In all three positions I get positive reviews and even raises. (this is not my real HN account, I created it just to share this story without divulging my identity)
- rsamp 6y agoI also have a wife, kids and excercise two hours 6 days a week.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoThanks for sharing, I think everyone gets this same idea once you realize office jobs are ~80% wasted time but to most it seems too outlandish to actually try and do it. Similar idea: you could get a remote job and only actually work for something like 2h/day. Would you say that is equally feasible? How did you pick jobs? As in, what criteria did you set and how did you check them?
- 6y ago
- pjdemers 6y agoIt's not illegal to have two jobs, but usually for a FTE salaried job, you employment agreement says must tell your employer about any other jobs you have, including part time and hourly. A big reason why companies don't want you to have another tech job is that you might not really being doing either job, you outsource one or both of them. That breaks confidentiality laws when you give your subcontractor access to documents, data, source code, names of your coworkers, etc.
- bluedevil2k 6y agoI find it ironic that so many people are arguing about the morality and ethics of working 2 full time jobs when he's working at companies that have shown repeatedly they lack morality and ethics.
- crazygringo 6y agoIf true, that would be fascinating, and for a lot of companies (like if you did e-mail support) there would be nothing illegal about it -- you just don't want to be discovered. But I'm legitimately curious about the ramifications of IP here -- both Google and (I'm assuming) Facebook claim to own all your intellectual output related to their business areas. So you've basically just signed ownership of all your work for both companies to both Facebook and Google. IANAL, so I don't know what the term for this would be, but it does seem like you'd get in trouble -- fraud? I assume you'd somehow slip eventually and get caught, and likely be sued by both companies, with an incredible headache for both companies' sets of lawyers as they try to figure out what to do with the code you committed, and if they can even use it anymore at all.
- notmyname9173 6y agoGiven that both organizations treat complying with legal and contractual obligations as a risk management exercise, I see no problem with their employees doing the same. It sounds like the subject of the story did the analysis, determined that the potential downsides aren't really that bad (for him/her/them), and acted accordingly. If it's even true at all.
- nrmitchi 6y agoIn defense of this hypothetical employee (who may or may not exist) I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't go in to this thinking "I'm going to work 2 jobs" but rather: - Interviewed at the other company, and received an offer - Took time away from main job to start new job, with the intention of resigning after his onboarding (just in case) - Came back and wanted to clean a few things up before resigning. - Kept doing that - Realized everything was fine and never quit Not saying it doesn't still have issues, but it's easy to see how someone with "normal" intentions could have slowly ended up in this situation.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- leothekim 6y agoRegardless as to whether this is legal, and assuming this is indeed true, I'm just curious - one of these jobs the person is probably phoning it in a little bit more than the other. Does anyone have insight here? Austen definitely has an opinion: https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1311530531725602816 https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1311530531725602816
- tzs 6y agoFor those saying it is not illegal, not so fast. If they lied to the second employer to get the second job (such as by saying that they had no other jobs or were quitting their other jobs) that may be fraud in some jurisdictions. It's also very risky in terms of civil liability. If either employer introduces a product that comes anywhere near to something they worked on at the other employer, that other employer may sue the employee alleging trade secret theft. That's a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Mostly, being civil not criminal is good for a defendant...but there is one important area where it isn't. That's the burden of proof. Prosecutors in criminal cases have to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt". Plaintiffs in civil cases just have to meet either "preponderance of the evidence" in most cases, and "clear and convincing" in a few. I'm not fully sure, but I believe a trade secret appropriation suit would use "preponderance of the evidence". That's also known as "more likely than not". Working at plaintiff on stuff anywhere close to the allegedly misappropriated trade secret will be enough to to meet that for plaintiff, effectively shifting the burden of proof on the employee to prove that they did not supply the other employer with the trade secret. The plaintiff would almost certainly sue the other employer too, not just the employee. If the plaintiff wins that suit, that other employer might sue the employer asking them to pay any damages they owe from that suit. This would not be pleasant for the employee.
- yumraj 6y ago1. There is not enough information in the original tweet to determine if this person is working full-time at either company or part-time. Both companies employ enough contractors. 2. As other comments said, this might not be ethical but may still be legal. Full-time employees are not hourly, and as long as they do their job hours shouldn't matter. 3. If in California, there is no non-compete. 4. Due to it being FB and Google, they can get into trouble from an IP standpoint of they leak or use IP from one at the other. 5. Logistics can be interesting. But it is certainly possible for a person to claim they are remote from different timezones at each company to minimize conflicts. 6. Still I can't see how they can continue this for long if friend of friend already knows about this. Someone in there social circle will get jealous and report them.
- em-bee 6y agodoes the no-non-compete apply when you are still at your old job? the reason non-competes are bad is because they could prevent you from having any job at all, but that doesn't mean that you should be allowed to have two competing jobs at the the same time.
- yumraj 6y agoThat is an interesting question. IMNAL, but hopefully someone from the legal profession would chime in.
- dragonwriter 6y ago“A friend of a friend” is a standard signal that what is being repeated is a rumor, of which the speaker has no personal knowledge, often an urban legend.
- ynodir 6y agoTried this, was very stressful. It messes with your brain. Even though I've recovered after a year or so, my shortterm memory isn't what it used to be after that. So, beware.
- raincom 6y agoI heard that it is very hard to slack off at FB with design meetings. And that even many Xooglers were put on PIP at FB. Everything is possible in the stories of "friend of friend of friend". Just like those fakirs who mastered climbing ropes!! Evidence: my friend said so, etc.