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I am completely sympathetic because of how expensive housing is. Everyone here claiming it’s fraud: Why are you convinced that your employer and you have a con

I am completely sympathetic because of how expensive housing is. Everyone here claiming it’s fraud: Why are you convinced that your employer and you have a congenial relationship? All employment contracts are one sided. They have more power. They stick some unfair contract on you and underpay you. Why did you get into the mindset that you getting paid enough to buy a house is now fraud? Do you deserve to own a house? Because in most of the areas anywhere near me, it would take many years to afford one. If you have children, you also have to pay for college. Unless you get lucky gambling or trading shitcoins: You will never survive on the salaries being offered for your labor. And the terms are exploitative and one sided. If you examine closely how most CEOs operate, and politicians, you find that they are exploiting every single loophole imaginable. Take Elon Musk for example. He has 12 children and just nuked everyone at twitter probably over the age of 33. All laid off. And he cut holiday pay for contractors. Do you think Elon musk gives a shit if you can afford a house and childcare as a tech worker? He does not. I think the people in this thread gasping out of shock need to understand just how much you are being screwed right now by most employment arrangementst. A couple decades ago maybe I could imagine it. Now? Oh hell no. It’s totally unfair.

roenxi 4y ago
> ...They stick some unfair contract on you and underpay you. Mr. Article Writer is making $440k/annum from 2 jobs. Somewhere before hitting $200k/annum jobs that excuse goes away. Those sort of earnings aren't what someone can command from a powerless position either. And the reason it is being called fraud is because he is probably misrepresenting his circumstances - lying directly, in other words. Unless his employer has a sloppy lawyer. He doesn't get a moral pass for lying because there is unfairness in the world. That logic could excuse any crime.
- mym1990 4y ago
  If you read the other articles, there more certainly is misrepresentation going on(mouse jigglers to fake being online). The second job is an 80 hour a week contract. So you’re looking at 120 hours on paper and a person who is saying that doing so has allowed for more time to do things in their private life…
- chrisbaker98 4y ago
  > And the reason it is being called fraud is because he is probably misrepresenting his circumstances The reason it's being called fraud is because it is fraud. How could it not be? Every full-time contract I've ever had had a clause stipulating that it would be my only employment. If I'd had another job and my boss found out, that would be grounds for instant dismissal. My wife works in the legal department of a FAANG company and she says this has actually become a big problem for them since the pandemic and the shift to remote work. They've fired a bunch of people after discovering they were "overemployed", and they're increasingly vigilant about it and on the lookout for employees who might be doing it. So if you want to try it yourself, don't assume you won't get caught.
  - antman 4y ago
    In many countries terms of what you are doing outside of contract as long as not as it does no harm are null n void. YMMV
  - Retric 4y ago
    Breech of contract isn’t the same thing as fraud. A full time employment contract doesn’t preclude other things which take up significant time such as volunteering, or parenthood. Companies want exclusivity to increase their bargaining position, but they simply fire most of these people rather than sue for damages because it’s difficult to prove any harm.
    - mytherin 4y ago
      If you are charging two companies for 40 hours per week of work, while only working 20 hours per week for each of them, then that is fraud by any reasonable definition of the word.
      - ok_dad 4y ago
        So I guess all those companies paying for 40 hours and getting 50 or 60 should be charged charged with fraud?
- drewcoo 4y ago
  > Mr. Article Writer is making $440k/annum from 2 jobs. That is less than the top 1% nationally[1]. And he's working two jobs to not even be in the 1%. Waaaah! So . . . how can he cheat the rest of us enough to be in the 1% while only having one job? That's the most amicable way to help him avoid your "fraud," isn't it? 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/how-much-money-you-have-to-earn-to-be-in-the-top-1percent-in-every-us-state.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/how-much-money-you-have-to-e...
  - roenxi 4y ago
    A job is not really supposed to get someone into that top 1%. The "capitalism" thing isn't a secret, to be wealthy you need to own capital. If we organise so that people who are shrewd with resources get power, the results are better. The obvious alternative is people who work hard which which sounds good and that is about all the idea has going for it. It leads to poor outcomes for everyone. The amount of good someone can do as an individual caps out pretty quickly but can get someone into a solid 10% top earners if they are exceptional. Beyond that, wealth and income come from how well a body deploys resources. Top 30% incomes are more than high enough to start buying in to assets - or they were before the central banks started tilting the board. But the response to that shouldn't be more lies.
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  > Mr. Article Writer is making $440k/annum from 2 jobs He only claims to do this, but it could be just some fiction. I find it hard to believe that he is able to do this with a year of self taught practice to land two jobs paying 220k or he's extremely lucky to pass technical interviews.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    > or he's extremely lucky to pass technical interviews. We had some articles about people supposedly acting as standins for Zoom interviews posted on here recently...
dijit 4y ago
I really understand your perspective, in the US companies are quite close to feifdoms with only minimal oversight and with the only real added benefit over being a serf that you can traverse to some other fiefdom that treats you the same or marginally better. It strikes me though, that this comment is very US-centric. In parts of Europe (I'm talking about Sweden specifically here): employee protections are very strong. > All employment contracts are one sided. They have more power. They stick some unfair contract on you and underpay you. I can't give examples off the top of my head, but it is widely accepted that if an employment contract omits a certain topic: then whatever that topic is will fall on the side of the employee in a court of law, it is absurdly hard to fire people. All these things have pros and cons, but it does mean effectively that once you're employed then you have a social safety net that even banks recognise and provides a lot of psychological safety too. I'm just saying: your perspective feels contra to my experience so it's at least not universal.
benjaminwootton 4y ago
You could write a million words trying to justify this. However, if you are selling the same hour of effort to two or more people then you are lying to, stealing from and defrauding them. That is totally black and white. People are entitled to respond to the unfair state of the world in many ways, but it doesn’t justify theft. As an aside, I am amazed at how sites like HN can virtue signal with the best of them, then conduct mental gymnastics to claim that double billing isn’t fraudulent. Cmon guys surely anyone can see this isn’t right?
- ttoks 4y ago
  IT is not so clearly "hours in = work getting done" type of job, most of the time you are paid to have your knowledge and skills available for when it is required, but day to day work is a big cruise.
  - benjaminwootton 4y ago
    I totally agree, but most people sign a contract for hours and get paid per hour or per day. They are therefore selling hours. If you are contracted and paid on outcomes then of course take as many jobs as you can fit in to your day. Everyone knows the difference so this is no justification whatsoever.
- another_story 4y ago
  Theft is justified when the playing field is not fair, and when one party has vastly more leverage. You can't say the hungry are not justified in stealing when the rulers take their labor by force.
  - b112 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - hluska 4y ago
      Seek help?? I find it quite ironic that anyone who would get this angry on an Internet forum would suggest that anyone else seek help. Please relax. This level of anger will shorten your life (and makes for a really awful forum). These personal attacks are several levels beyond acceptable.
ttoks 4y ago
just to add, is not that the person is stealing money. The person is working for it, the bare minimum, but the employer still happy to pay that salary or else they would have the person fired. now imagine being paid the same for busting your ass 14 hours a day, and someone doing the bare minimum being paid the same? People should stop overworking. People's salary represents the minimum amount of money that their boss is willing to pay for the work, so to the minimum amount of work required. Questions like "what are your expectations?", usually can be read as "how low can you go?". You put a very nice argument there.
- varjag 4y ago
  Could it happen that someone has to bust their ass 14 hours a day because someone else works 4 hours?
  - hnzix 4y ago
    If someone is slacking off then they need to be performance managed or fired. That's management's problem.
    - ttoks 4y ago
  - ttoks 4y ago
  - raydev 4y ago
    If so, it shouldn't happen for long since the person working 14 hours a day would inform their manager/boss to 1. Readjust estimates/expectations because a team member has stopped contributing (happens all the time if someone gets sick/hospitalized, there should be processes for this) 2. Address the problematic employee to confirm they will contribute, or fire them If the actual-worker is still overburdened, then it's a management/company problem and the overburdened should be looking around for new employment.
trabant00 4y ago
This whole argument falls apart because there are perfectly legal and honest ways to work multiple "jobs". Do contract work or create your own company and offer IT services. Get your own employees and "stick some unfair contract on them and underpay them". See if it really works. And for being sympathetic: are you towards the rest of the people in the teams this fraud is part of? Do you want to poison the market so it rejects remote work? Do you want more employee surveillance? "Elon Musk is bad so I can do whatever I want!" - Think about the kind of world this brings about.
primax 4y ago
This comment feels like some misplaced copy pasta. It doesn't land right in the land of huge salaries paid to developers and other IT staff in the sectors that attract hacker news readers.
francis-io 4y ago
Twitter contractors got holiday pay? Maybe it's an American thing, but here in the UK I've never heard that. You either work or don't get paid.

roenxi 4y ago

> ...They stick some unfair contract on you and underpay you. Mr. Article Writer is making $440k/annum from 2 jobs. Somewhere before hitting $200k/annum jobs that excuse goes away. Those sort of earnings aren't what someone can command from a powerless position either. And the reason it is being called fraud is because he is probably misrepresenting his circumstances - lying directly, in other words. Unless his employer has a sloppy lawyer. He doesn't get a moral pass for lying because there is unfairness in the world. That logic could excuse any crime.

mym1990 4y ago
If you read the other articles, there more certainly is misrepresentation going on(mouse jigglers to fake being online). The second job is an 80 hour a week contract. So you’re looking at 120 hours on paper and a person who is saying that doing so has allowed for more time to do things in their private life…
chrisbaker98 4y ago
> And the reason it is being called fraud is because he is probably misrepresenting his circumstances The reason it's being called fraud is because it is fraud. How could it not be? Every full-time contract I've ever had had a clause stipulating that it would be my only employment. If I'd had another job and my boss found out, that would be grounds for instant dismissal. My wife works in the legal department of a FAANG company and she says this has actually become a big problem for them since the pandemic and the shift to remote work. They've fired a bunch of people after discovering they were "overemployed", and they're increasingly vigilant about it and on the lookout for employees who might be doing it. So if you want to try it yourself, don't assume you won't get caught.
- antman 4y ago
  In many countries terms of what you are doing outside of contract as long as not as it does no harm are null n void. YMMV
- Retric 4y ago
  Breech of contract isn’t the same thing as fraud. A full time employment contract doesn’t preclude other things which take up significant time such as volunteering, or parenthood. Companies want exclusivity to increase their bargaining position, but they simply fire most of these people rather than sue for damages because it’s difficult to prove any harm.
  - mytherin 4y ago
    If you are charging two companies for 40 hours per week of work, while only working 20 hours per week for each of them, then that is fraud by any reasonable definition of the word.
    - ok_dad 4y ago
      So I guess all those companies paying for 40 hours and getting 50 or 60 should be charged charged with fraud?
drewcoo 4y ago
> Mr. Article Writer is making $440k/annum from 2 jobs. That is less than the top 1% nationally[1]. And he's working two jobs to not even be in the 1%. Waaaah! So . . . how can he cheat the rest of us enough to be in the 1% while only having one job? That's the most amicable way to help him avoid your "fraud," isn't it? 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/how-much-money-you-have-to-earn-to-be-in-the-top-1percent-in-every-us-state.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/how-much-money-you-have-to-e...
- roenxi 4y ago
  A job is not really supposed to get someone into that top 1%. The "capitalism" thing isn't a secret, to be wealthy you need to own capital. If we organise so that people who are shrewd with resources get power, the results are better. The obvious alternative is people who work hard which which sounds good and that is about all the idea has going for it. It leads to poor outcomes for everyone. The amount of good someone can do as an individual caps out pretty quickly but can get someone into a solid 10% top earners if they are exceptional. Beyond that, wealth and income come from how well a body deploys resources. Top 30% incomes are more than high enough to start buying in to assets - or they were before the central banks started tilting the board. But the response to that shouldn't be more lies.
tiborsaas 4y ago
> Mr. Article Writer is making $440k/annum from 2 jobs He only claims to do this, but it could be just some fiction. I find it hard to believe that he is able to do this with a year of self taught practice to land two jobs paying 220k or he's extremely lucky to pass technical interviews.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > or he's extremely lucky to pass technical interviews. We had some articles about people supposedly acting as standins for Zoom interviews posted on here recently...

dijit 4y ago

I really understand your perspective, in the US companies are quite close to feifdoms with only minimal oversight and with the only real added benefit over being a serf that you can traverse to some other fiefdom that treats you the same or marginally better. It strikes me though, that this comment is very US-centric. In parts of Europe (I'm talking about Sweden specifically here): employee protections are very strong. > All employment contracts are one sided. They have more power. They stick some unfair contract on you and underpay you. I can't give examples off the top of my head, but it is widely accepted that if an employment contract omits a certain topic: then whatever that topic is will fall on the side of the employee in a court of law, it is absurdly hard to fire people. All these things have pros and cons, but it does mean effectively that once you're employed then you have a social safety net that even banks recognise and provides a lot of psychological safety too. I'm just saying: your perspective feels contra to my experience so it's at least not universal.

benjaminwootton 4y ago

You could write a million words trying to justify this. However, if you are selling the same hour of effort to two or more people then you are lying to, stealing from and defrauding them. That is totally black and white. People are entitled to respond to the unfair state of the world in many ways, but it doesn’t justify theft. As an aside, I am amazed at how sites like HN can virtue signal with the best of them, then conduct mental gymnastics to claim that double billing isn’t fraudulent. Cmon guys surely anyone can see this isn’t right?

ttoks 4y ago
IT is not so clearly "hours in = work getting done" type of job, most of the time you are paid to have your knowledge and skills available for when it is required, but day to day work is a big cruise.
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  I totally agree, but most people sign a contract for hours and get paid per hour or per day. They are therefore selling hours. If you are contracted and paid on outcomes then of course take as many jobs as you can fit in to your day. Everyone knows the difference so this is no justification whatsoever.
another_story 4y ago
Theft is justified when the playing field is not fair, and when one party has vastly more leverage. You can't say the hungry are not justified in stealing when the rulers take their labor by force.
- b112 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - hluska 4y ago
    Seek help?? I find it quite ironic that anyone who would get this angry on an Internet forum would suggest that anyone else seek help. Please relax. This level of anger will shorten your life (and makes for a really awful forum). These personal attacks are several levels beyond acceptable.

ttoks 4y ago

just to add, is not that the person is stealing money. The person is working for it, the bare minimum, but the employer still happy to pay that salary or else they would have the person fired. now imagine being paid the same for busting your ass 14 hours a day, and someone doing the bare minimum being paid the same? People should stop overworking. People's salary represents the minimum amount of money that their boss is willing to pay for the work, so to the minimum amount of work required. Questions like "what are your expectations?", usually can be read as "how low can you go?". You put a very nice argument there.

varjag 4y ago
Could it happen that someone has to bust their ass 14 hours a day because someone else works 4 hours?
- hnzix 4y ago
  If someone is slacking off then they need to be performance managed or fired. That's management's problem.
  - ttoks 4y ago
- ttoks 4y ago
- raydev 4y ago
  If so, it shouldn't happen for long since the person working 14 hours a day would inform their manager/boss to 1. Readjust estimates/expectations because a team member has stopped contributing (happens all the time if someone gets sick/hospitalized, there should be processes for this) 2. Address the problematic employee to confirm they will contribute, or fire them If the actual-worker is still overburdened, then it's a management/company problem and the overburdened should be looking around for new employment.

trabant00 4y ago

This whole argument falls apart because there are perfectly legal and honest ways to work multiple "jobs". Do contract work or create your own company and offer IT services. Get your own employees and "stick some unfair contract on them and underpay them". See if it really works. And for being sympathetic: are you towards the rest of the people in the teams this fraud is part of? Do you want to poison the market so it rejects remote work? Do you want more employee surveillance? "Elon Musk is bad so I can do whatever I want!" - Think about the kind of world this brings about.

primax 4y ago

This comment feels like some misplaced copy pasta. It doesn't land right in the land of huge salaries paid to developers and other IT staff in the sectors that attract hacker news readers.

francis-io 4y ago

Twitter contractors got holiday pay? Maybe it's an American thing, but here in the UK I've never heard that. You either work or don't get paid.