5 ms·

Anecdotal, but my wife was doing 2.5 remote jobs simultaneously for a while, and apparently performing above expectation in all of them. However -- meetings wer

Anecdotal, but my wife was doing 2.5 remote jobs simultaneously for a while, and apparently performing above expectation in all of them. However -- meetings were her major complaint, and she eventually burned out and quit the two full time jobs due to excessive and (according to her) pointless meetings. One of the companies asked her to stay on as a consultant. They ended up hiring someone full time... who spent all their time in meetings, while my wife did the actual work. For significantly less pay, of course. So yes, overemployed remote workers really exist, but at least in her case it was largely due to incompetent management.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> while my wife did the actual work. For significantly less pay, of course. What kind of consultant is paid less?
- haswell 4y ago
  That probably depends a lot more on her previous title than the consulting title. I could definitely imagine scenarios where a meeting-heavy middle/upper management job pays quite a bit more than consulting.
- telchior 4y ago
  Ah, just to clarify: she was also working far fewer hours. The meetings really were the primary time sink.
  - KMag 4y ago
    This is where we figure out that overemployed people are using deepfakes to be in multiple Zoom meetings at once.
gsk22 4y ago
> So yes, overemployed remote workers really exist, but at least in her case it was largely due to incompetent management. I mean, incompetent management may have allowed the situation to persist. But your wife "working" 2.5 jobs for (presumably) the expected hours of just one of those jobs can't be blamed on management. She chose to accept all 3 of those positions with the knowledge that she wouldn't meet the conditions of employ. I'm not a "send 'em to jail!" type, and I have little sympathy for large corporations, but let's not pretend it's anything less than time theft.
- anikan_vader 4y ago
  >> time theft But her time is not their property, and so there is nothing illegal about her doing with it as she pleases. You can’t steal something that is already yours.
- wpietri 4y ago
  What makes it "time theft", whatever that means? US employers have worked very hard to make many of their workers "exempt" [1] such that they don't have to pay for overtime and can make people work egregious hours without getting in legal trouble. If that's not "time theft", then I don't see why an exempt worker who can do the work of two people shouldn't get paid for doing the work of two people. It would be different if they were hourly workers and they were double-billing for the same hour, of course. But I don't think that's what's happening here. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp
  - gsk22 4y ago
    You can still "double-bill" in an exempt position. Most employment contracts I've seen stipulate an expected work week of 40 hours. If I sign 3 contracts like that, now I would need to work 120 hours to fulfill the obligation. And as long as someone collects the paychecks from all 3 jobs without fulfilling the contractual requirements of those jobs, well, that is sort of the definition of theft. Money gained without performing the work necessary to earn it.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      I don't think I've ever seen an employment contract for an exempt position that specifies the number of hours to work. So yes, if somebody is foolish enough to sign that, they might get in trouble. But again, I doubt that's the case here.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- telchior 4y ago
spoonjim 4y ago
Either your wife is a massive outlier in skills, or the company just isn’t working her hard as they could be. As remote work opens jobs to the broader world, Americans are quickly going to find out that if they can’t generate the business impact of a Serbian or Chinese developer working 60+ hours a week they are going to find themselves in a very unpleasant situation. Some Jeff Dean sorts could do that in 5 minutes a week but most people can’t.
- telchior 4y ago
  Sure, you're right. I wouldn't say that the problem is that the companies are not working her as hard as they could be; I'd say that what they think is a full time position should actually be part time. But they've refused to see it that way, for one reason or another. We (Westerners in general) would indeed be screwed if you could just replace people with cheaper workers from other countries. It's not that simple, though. Language and cultural differences are a massive barrier. I say that as someone who has worked with a lot of East and Southeast Asians who are brilliant, hardworking people -- but it still takes a lot of effort to figure out how to work together, and that's at a startup scale where you can really pay attention to each person. Larger companies tend to have a lot of outsourcing horror stories.
  - spoonjim 4y ago
    Certainly, today, an on-shore American developer has more ability to generate business impact than an offshore Southeast Asian developer. But I think that's more because of the bias-laden and chummy way that companies are managed, which is an artifact of office-driven culture. Remote work cultures will be more based on written communication and demonstrated results, and then American developers not in the FAANG skill bracket are going to find out that they are not a very attractive buy when someone almost as good is available for 1/5 the cost.
    - telchior 4y ago
      Yeah, I thought so too. Then I started hiring (for my very small startup) in SE Asia. And, well, maybe I'm biased and chummy, but it just wasn't incredibly smooth sailing. This is purely remote, almost all written communication, etc. I have no regrets and still employ the same people today, but it just wasn't so straightforward as you're making it out to be. I think it's actually easier for a startup to have, let's say, an entirely Indonesian team including the founders, targeting an American market, versus a startup having an American founding team then start hiring in Indonesia. (For big companies I don't know, but I'd imagine it all gets even more complicated.)

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

> while my wife did the actual work. For significantly less pay, of course. What kind of consultant is paid less?

haswell 4y ago
That probably depends a lot more on her previous title than the consulting title. I could definitely imagine scenarios where a meeting-heavy middle/upper management job pays quite a bit more than consulting.
telchior 4y ago
Ah, just to clarify: she was also working far fewer hours. The meetings really were the primary time sink.
- KMag 4y ago
  This is where we figure out that overemployed people are using deepfakes to be in multiple Zoom meetings at once.

gsk22 4y ago

> So yes, overemployed remote workers really exist, but at least in her case it was largely due to incompetent management. I mean, incompetent management may have allowed the situation to persist. But your wife "working" 2.5 jobs for (presumably) the expected hours of just one of those jobs can't be blamed on management. She chose to accept all 3 of those positions with the knowledge that she wouldn't meet the conditions of employ. I'm not a "send 'em to jail!" type, and I have little sympathy for large corporations, but let's not pretend it's anything less than time theft.

anikan_vader 4y ago
>> time theft But her time is not their property, and so there is nothing illegal about her doing with it as she pleases. You can’t steal something that is already yours.
wpietri 4y ago
What makes it "time theft", whatever that means? US employers have worked very hard to make many of their workers "exempt" [1] such that they don't have to pay for overtime and can make people work egregious hours without getting in legal trouble. If that's not "time theft", then I don't see why an exempt worker who can do the work of two people shouldn't get paid for doing the work of two people. It would be different if they were hourly workers and they were double-billing for the same hour, of course. But I don't think that's what's happening here. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp
- gsk22 4y ago
  You can still "double-bill" in an exempt position. Most employment contracts I've seen stipulate an expected work week of 40 hours. If I sign 3 contracts like that, now I would need to work 120 hours to fulfill the obligation. And as long as someone collects the paychecks from all 3 jobs without fulfilling the contractual requirements of those jobs, well, that is sort of the definition of theft. Money gained without performing the work necessary to earn it.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    I don't think I've ever seen an employment contract for an exempt position that specifies the number of hours to work. So yes, if somebody is foolish enough to sign that, they might get in trouble. But again, I doubt that's the case here.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
telchior 4y ago

spoonjim 4y ago

Either your wife is a massive outlier in skills, or the company just isn’t working her hard as they could be. As remote work opens jobs to the broader world, Americans are quickly going to find out that if they can’t generate the business impact of a Serbian or Chinese developer working 60+ hours a week they are going to find themselves in a very unpleasant situation. Some Jeff Dean sorts could do that in 5 minutes a week but most people can’t.

telchior 4y ago
Sure, you're right. I wouldn't say that the problem is that the companies are not working her as hard as they could be; I'd say that what they think is a full time position should actually be part time. But they've refused to see it that way, for one reason or another. We (Westerners in general) would indeed be screwed if you could just replace people with cheaper workers from other countries. It's not that simple, though. Language and cultural differences are a massive barrier. I say that as someone who has worked with a lot of East and Southeast Asians who are brilliant, hardworking people -- but it still takes a lot of effort to figure out how to work together, and that's at a startup scale where you can really pay attention to each person. Larger companies tend to have a lot of outsourcing horror stories.
- spoonjim 4y ago
  Certainly, today, an on-shore American developer has more ability to generate business impact than an offshore Southeast Asian developer. But I think that's more because of the bias-laden and chummy way that companies are managed, which is an artifact of office-driven culture. Remote work cultures will be more based on written communication and demonstrated results, and then American developers not in the FAANG skill bracket are going to find out that they are not a very attractive buy when someone almost as good is available for 1/5 the cost.
  - telchior 4y ago
    Yeah, I thought so too. Then I started hiring (for my very small startup) in SE Asia. And, well, maybe I'm biased and chummy, but it just wasn't incredibly smooth sailing. This is purely remote, almost all written communication, etc. I have no regrets and still employ the same people today, but it just wasn't so straightforward as you're making it out to be. I think it's actually easier for a startup to have, let's say, an entirely Indonesian team including the founders, targeting an American market, versus a startup having an American founding team then start hiring in Indonesia. (For big companies I don't know, but I'd imagine it all gets even more complicated.)