5 ms·

This happened to me, twice, and my company is < 20 people. Of those 20, 2 had multiple jobs. We hired a guy who found us on HN Who's Hiring who turned out to be

by cj 4y ago

This happened to me, twice, and my company is < 20 people. Of those 20, 2 had multiple jobs. We hired a guy who found us on HN Who's Hiring who turned out to be working 3 (THREE!!) full time jobs, each paying $140k+. He quit when I started putting deadlines on work when he started falling behind. I got suspicious, reached out to his prior company's CEO to ask if he was still employed, and turns out he was! Then came the discovery of the 3rd company... For hiring managers out there: make sure candidates have a linkedin profile that lists your current company as their current place of employment (both employees with 2+ jobs had their LinkedIn hidden for obvious reasons), and always run background checks that include employment verification screens.

Beaver117 4y ago
Have you considered your company pays so low as to force people to work multiple jobs? I think we both know that person could get much more than $140k elsewhere.
- solar-ice 4y ago
  I have no strong opinion on the working multiple jobs thing, but a single person making $140k is not forced to do anything. That is not a low wage. Fucking hell.
  - walleeee 4y ago
    Seriously, a single person making less than that can live comfortably nearly anywhere in the US if they keep expenses reasonable, especially if it's remote and they have no need for a car
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      yeah, just a quick reality check for the codezillas here: The median US household income for 2021 was $68,000 There are places outside the SF Bay Area
ryandrake 4y ago
To play Devil's Advocate: IF the employee is meeting all work expectations, and IF he is not also working for a competitor, and IF he is keeping a good firewall between his work for each of these companies (using company-specific equipment for each job, never crossing the streams), then as a hiring manager, why is this a problem? For low paid service workers, it's acceptable and sometimes expected to juggle multiple jobs. Why is it unacceptable for office workers?
- glouwbug 4y ago
  You wouldn't work at Starbucks and Denny's on the same hours, would you? 40 hour per week contracts expect the same
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    There are 168 hours in a week. Even if they sleep/eat/shower for almost 1/3 the time, that's enough time to 3 40 hr/week jobs. Certainly enough for 2.
    - glouwbug 4y ago
      With the timezones 8 hours apart I suppose it's okay to work two remote jobs. The tech on the job will have to be vastly different however?
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  On the surface, I agree. However, tech work usually involves intellectual property and sometimes non-disclosure agreements. Also, many employee contracts will explicitly prohibit other working arrangements (salaried or not). That said, I applaud anyone who can get away with it. The down side seems minimal.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  Because in reality, we have to rely on engineers to be honest about their workload and estimates to determine realistic expectations. The overemployed game is all about exaggerating how much you're working and how difficult your tasks are. Targets, deadlines, and work scoping aren't chosen in a vacuum. We rely on the team to give us feedback about what they can accomplish in the expected full-time work week. This goes both ways. If I'm handing out 80 hours of work every week, I need my team to tell me it's too much and I'll scale it down. The problem with overemployed people is that they must lie about their workloads and estimates to avoid being assigned more work than they can handle. We had an overemployed remote person once. Like the parent comment, we noticed when they weren't performing at the same level as their peers (or even a reasonable level of expectation). They were also frequently unavailable for discussions, half-involved in meetings, and generally unreliable. > For low paid service workers, it's acceptable and sometimes expected to juggle multiple jobs. Why is it unacceptable for office workers? Low paid workers with multiple jobs aren't doing them simultaneously, but someone with two remote tech jobs is almost certainly trying to do both at the same time. Honestly if someone had infinite energy and could dedicate 8 hours per day to my job and then another 8 hours per day to another job and not overlap the two or run out of steam, I wouldn't care at all. But in practice, it becomes a constant game of lies and sandbagging that is just incompatible with running a fair and balanced engineering team. (Hint: It's often the coworkers who catch on before the manager because they can see very clearly that their peer is sandbagging)
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> He quit when I started putting deadlines on work when he started falling behind. I got suspicious, reached out to his prior company's CEO to ask if he was still employed, Similar story here. Person was clearly falling behind and was unreliable. The "it shouldn't matter if they get their work done" narrative doesn't hold up in practice, at least not with any reasonably utilized engineering team. Now when I hire remote, I get in contact with the person's former company to confirm their start and end dates match the resume.
- Namari 4y ago
  I hope you don't call the person's former company before he signed the contract, you should not do that because he may not have resigned and told anyone about it, this could compromise him if he decides to pull out at the last minute. I would be really pissed if someone would do that to me and I would make sure tell everyone this sneaky behaviour on Glassdoor. Also I've resigned once but decided to take a month off in between so dates wouldn't match.
  - noptd 4y ago
    If you put an end date like the PP mentioned, then I think that's on you. "<Start date> - current" prevents that problem nicely.
smeagull 4y ago
LinkedIn accounts are useless, except as a way of containing all the HR/Grind culture people.

by cj 4y ago

Beaver117 4y ago

Have you considered your company pays so low as to force people to work multiple jobs? I think we both know that person could get much more than $140k elsewhere.

solar-ice 4y ago
I have no strong opinion on the working multiple jobs thing, but a single person making $140k is not forced to do anything. That is not a low wage. Fucking hell.
- walleeee 4y ago
  Seriously, a single person making less than that can live comfortably nearly anywhere in the US if they keep expenses reasonable, especially if it's remote and they have no need for a car
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    yeah, just a quick reality check for the codezillas here: The median US household income for 2021 was $68,000 There are places outside the SF Bay Area

ryandrake 4y ago

To play Devil's Advocate: IF the employee is meeting all work expectations, and IF he is not also working for a competitor, and IF he is keeping a good firewall between his work for each of these companies (using company-specific equipment for each job, never crossing the streams), then as a hiring manager, why is this a problem? For low paid service workers, it's acceptable and sometimes expected to juggle multiple jobs. Why is it unacceptable for office workers?

glouwbug 4y ago
You wouldn't work at Starbucks and Denny's on the same hours, would you? 40 hour per week contracts expect the same
- HWR_14 4y ago
  There are 168 hours in a week. Even if they sleep/eat/shower for almost 1/3 the time, that's enough time to 3 40 hr/week jobs. Certainly enough for 2.
  - glouwbug 4y ago
    With the timezones 8 hours apart I suppose it's okay to work two remote jobs. The tech on the job will have to be vastly different however?
throwaway2037 4y ago
On the surface, I agree. However, tech work usually involves intellectual property and sometimes non-disclosure agreements. Also, many employee contracts will explicitly prohibit other working arrangements (salaried or not). That said, I applaud anyone who can get away with it. The down side seems minimal.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Because in reality, we have to rely on engineers to be honest about their workload and estimates to determine realistic expectations. The overemployed game is all about exaggerating how much you're working and how difficult your tasks are. Targets, deadlines, and work scoping aren't chosen in a vacuum. We rely on the team to give us feedback about what they can accomplish in the expected full-time work week. This goes both ways. If I'm handing out 80 hours of work every week, I need my team to tell me it's too much and I'll scale it down. The problem with overemployed people is that they must lie about their workloads and estimates to avoid being assigned more work than they can handle. We had an overemployed remote person once. Like the parent comment, we noticed when they weren't performing at the same level as their peers (or even a reasonable level of expectation). They were also frequently unavailable for discussions, half-involved in meetings, and generally unreliable. > For low paid service workers, it's acceptable and sometimes expected to juggle multiple jobs. Why is it unacceptable for office workers? Low paid workers with multiple jobs aren't doing them simultaneously, but someone with two remote tech jobs is almost certainly trying to do both at the same time. Honestly if someone had infinite energy and could dedicate 8 hours per day to my job and then another 8 hours per day to another job and not overlap the two or run out of steam, I wouldn't care at all. But in practice, it becomes a constant game of lies and sandbagging that is just incompatible with running a fair and balanced engineering team. (Hint: It's often the coworkers who catch on before the manager because they can see very clearly that their peer is sandbagging)

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> He quit when I started putting deadlines on work when he started falling behind. I got suspicious, reached out to his prior company's CEO to ask if he was still employed, Similar story here. Person was clearly falling behind and was unreliable. The "it shouldn't matter if they get their work done" narrative doesn't hold up in practice, at least not with any reasonably utilized engineering team. Now when I hire remote, I get in contact with the person's former company to confirm their start and end dates match the resume.

Namari 4y ago
I hope you don't call the person's former company before he signed the contract, you should not do that because he may not have resigned and told anyone about it, this could compromise him if he decides to pull out at the last minute. I would be really pissed if someone would do that to me and I would make sure tell everyone this sneaky behaviour on Glassdoor. Also I've resigned once but decided to take a month off in between so dates wouldn't match.
- noptd 4y ago
  If you put an end date like the PP mentioned, then I think that's on you. "<Start date> - current" prevents that problem nicely.

smeagull 4y ago

LinkedIn accounts are useless, except as a way of containing all the HR/Grind culture people.