5 ms·

This seems a little bit odd. Working exactly 40 hours a week is stressful enough - is it really worth it to double both your salary and your hours? I think I'd

This seems a little bit odd. Working exactly 40 hours a week is stressful enough - is it really worth it to double both your salary and your hours? I think I'd want at least 4x the salary in order to work 80-hour weeks - or is this practice mostly done by workaholics that enjoy long hours?

andreilys 4y ago
The trick is not working 40 hours :-)
jdironman 4y ago
Its probably done by people who snag lower effort remote jobs and do the minimum viable to be considered "good enough".
corrral 4y ago
I think the idea is you work two jobs that pay for 40 hours but only require 10-15 hours each, not to be noticeably worse than average.
Kaze404 4y ago
I used to think this was possible but simply out of what I consider acceptable. Some time ago I worked for a week while interviewing for a company that required candidates to do paid work for them, and it was the most miserable week of my life. I wouldn't do this for an extended amount of time for any amount of money. It's not worth it.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
The people who do this aren't interested in putting in full workweeks and delivering good work. Their goal is to find jobs and managers with low expectations, then sandbag as much as possible ("Gee, this task is harder than I thought. Going to take a couple weeks longer than we estimated!"). Had a team member try this and an old company. We caught on quickly when they couldn't keep up with their workload and were constantly unavailable during the day. Really sucked for the rest of the team who had to pick up the slack this person created by pretending to work full time.
- harles 4y ago
  I think this highlights one of the most important problems with people taking on multiple tech jobs: it’s the fellow employees that suffer the most. Some lost money is a drop in a bucket for most big companies, but other people just trying to do well at a single job really pay the price.
  - iwork3jobs 4y ago
    There are companies where the level of expertise is so low, you look like a genius beside them. I did this, I worked several jobs in parallel. The pay was... not really amazing, about 8k/mo when I had 3 projects at the same time. And in most of the cases I was a main player in some important parts of the system. I think _some_ people caught on. But I also think they didn't care that much because I solved their problems, unblocked their people and was always responsive, if push came to shove, I would put in the extra time to make the damn thing work and ship it.
    - ishjoh 4y ago
      8k/mo total or per project?
      - iwork3jobs 4y ago
        Total. Rates were... not great. They sucked, honestly, at least compared to what I hear on here on HN. Slightly over 45 Eur/h all project rates summed. Somewhere in Eastern Europe. That's great for someone who grew up and went through college on about 150 USD/month, so of course I felt like a king.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      well if the work got done, and stuff shipped, then it does not look like anyone has the right to be angry. i personally tried to do two jobs (with full agreement from both sides) splitting my week half half. It was a real struggle, but it is possible.
strikelaserclaw 4y ago
If you work 3-4+ years in a big company, you would most likely had the social credibility and knowledge of the systems to get your work done in 15-20 hrs a week. So if you get a new job, maybe you work a solid 30 hrs for that company, 50 hrs a week is manageable.
_trampeltier 4y ago
I wonder if there are cases, where worker just outsource some of the work to a guy in a cheaper country.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  There have been documented cases of that happening. One story I read, the employee only got found out because there was unusual VPN activity. Such as valid logins from (possibly?) Chinese IPs.
- cj 4y ago
  I employed an Account Execs (sales people) last year who paid for virtual assistants (out of pocket) to do 50% of their daily work. I didn't find out about it until after we let him go due to performance issues. Apparently virtual assistants don't make great sales people. I've also employed an engineer with multiple jobs (3 total). He's an active HN reader. I (sadly) wish they would have at least tried to outsource their work rather than not do the work at all and miss all their deadlines.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  you mean like USA Federal work, outsourced via corporate consulting offices to the UK in turn outsourced to India ? because the insane requirements to sign a contract with the US Federal Agency eliminate almost anyone, even actual business people with staff who have the skills ? like that?
  - _trampeltier 4y ago
    No, I mean "you work remote" as western guy (US, Europa) but you hire a guy in India or China by yourself. Instead you do your work, a guy with a lower salary does the job, you keep the difference and your company thinks you would do the work.
humanistbot 4y ago
If you want to buy a house in any major city in a G7 country, a single SWE salary isn't enough anymore.
roflyear 4y ago
The trick is to not double your hours. Idk if it works.
TrackerFF 4y ago
Lots and lots of "average" jobs have FAR less than 40 hours of actual work, but are still 100% positions. This obviously also depends on the individual doing the work - some work very efficiently, while others can be very slow. People then get the idea that they can juggle two jobs like that - but the trouble is usually not the work itself, but conflicting meetings and such.

andreilys 4y ago

The trick is not working 40 hours :-)

jdironman 4y ago

Its probably done by people who snag lower effort remote jobs and do the minimum viable to be considered "good enough".

corrral 4y ago

I think the idea is you work two jobs that pay for 40 hours but only require 10-15 hours each, not to be noticeably worse than average.

Kaze404 4y ago

I used to think this was possible but simply out of what I consider acceptable. Some time ago I worked for a week while interviewing for a company that required candidates to do paid work for them, and it was the most miserable week of my life. I wouldn't do this for an extended amount of time for any amount of money. It's not worth it.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

The people who do this aren't interested in putting in full workweeks and delivering good work. Their goal is to find jobs and managers with low expectations, then sandbag as much as possible ("Gee, this task is harder than I thought. Going to take a couple weeks longer than we estimated!"). Had a team member try this and an old company. We caught on quickly when they couldn't keep up with their workload and were constantly unavailable during the day. Really sucked for the rest of the team who had to pick up the slack this person created by pretending to work full time.

harles 4y ago
I think this highlights one of the most important problems with people taking on multiple tech jobs: it’s the fellow employees that suffer the most. Some lost money is a drop in a bucket for most big companies, but other people just trying to do well at a single job really pay the price.
- iwork3jobs 4y ago
  There are companies where the level of expertise is so low, you look like a genius beside them. I did this, I worked several jobs in parallel. The pay was... not really amazing, about 8k/mo when I had 3 projects at the same time. And in most of the cases I was a main player in some important parts of the system. I think _some_ people caught on. But I also think they didn't care that much because I solved their problems, unblocked their people and was always responsive, if push came to shove, I would put in the extra time to make the damn thing work and ship it.
  - ishjoh 4y ago
    8k/mo total or per project?
    - iwork3jobs 4y ago
      Total. Rates were... not great. They sucked, honestly, at least compared to what I hear on here on HN. Slightly over 45 Eur/h all project rates summed. Somewhere in Eastern Europe. That's great for someone who grew up and went through college on about 150 USD/month, so of course I felt like a king.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    well if the work got done, and stuff shipped, then it does not look like anyone has the right to be angry. i personally tried to do two jobs (with full agreement from both sides) splitting my week half half. It was a real struggle, but it is possible.

strikelaserclaw 4y ago

If you work 3-4+ years in a big company, you would most likely had the social credibility and knowledge of the systems to get your work done in 15-20 hrs a week. So if you get a new job, maybe you work a solid 30 hrs for that company, 50 hrs a week is manageable.

_trampeltier 4y ago

I wonder if there are cases, where worker just outsource some of the work to a guy in a cheaper country.

hnlmorg 4y ago
There have been documented cases of that happening. One story I read, the employee only got found out because there was unusual VPN activity. Such as valid logins from (possibly?) Chinese IPs.
cj 4y ago
I employed an Account Execs (sales people) last year who paid for virtual assistants (out of pocket) to do 50% of their daily work. I didn't find out about it until after we let him go due to performance issues. Apparently virtual assistants don't make great sales people. I've also employed an engineer with multiple jobs (3 total). He's an active HN reader. I (sadly) wish they would have at least tried to outsource their work rather than not do the work at all and miss all their deadlines.
mistrial9 4y ago
you mean like USA Federal work, outsourced via corporate consulting offices to the UK in turn outsourced to India ? because the insane requirements to sign a contract with the US Federal Agency eliminate almost anyone, even actual business people with staff who have the skills ? like that?
- _trampeltier 4y ago
  No, I mean "you work remote" as western guy (US, Europa) but you hire a guy in India or China by yourself. Instead you do your work, a guy with a lower salary does the job, you keep the difference and your company thinks you would do the work.

humanistbot 4y ago

If you want to buy a house in any major city in a G7 country, a single SWE salary isn't enough anymore.

roflyear 4y ago

The trick is to not double your hours. Idk if it works.

TrackerFF 4y ago

Lots and lots of "average" jobs have FAR less than 40 hours of actual work, but are still 100% positions. This obviously also depends on the individual doing the work - some work very efficiently, while others can be very slow. People then get the idea that they can juggle two jobs like that - but the trouble is usually not the work itself, but conflicting meetings and such.