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I see nothing particularly bad about the post you shared (it's just a personal account of someone that doesn't really care about their job), and the only thing

I see nothing particularly bad about the post you shared (it's just a personal account of someone that doesn't really care about their job), and the only thing that it tied to remote work is the mention of "multiple full time jobs". But then I have to ask - if his employers are happy enough with his work to keep him around, what is the problem there? Keep in mind, I am also the sort of guy that doesn't rage against employers doing layoffs when they have record profits. It's a natural cycle of business. Once you take personal feelings off the table and see it all as business relationships, everything is alright. As long as nothing illegal is being done, of course.

judge2020 4y ago
> But then I have to ask - if his employers are happy enough with his work to keep him around, what is the problem there? In SW environments, having the time to do more work is supposed to mean actually completing more projects. They hire you to "perform duties for x hours a day", not "complete x tasks/x story points per sprint", so if everyone on a team is taking a similar approach, your velocity might be half or less what it could be if everyone ended up on-site.
- surgical_fire 4y ago
  At what point does this become just creating meaningless work or pursuing initiatives that mean nothing? Do we know if the companies in the example given even support employee initiatives? And working on-site does not mean people will be more productive. A lot of people are very good at giving out the impression that they are very busy day in day out even when productivity is rock bottom.
- Klinky 4y ago
  > They hire you to "perform duties for x hours a day", not "complete x tasks/x story points per sprint" Then why hire salaried workers while tracking work via sprints? >your velocity might be half or less what it could be if everyone ended up on-site. This is assuming more work actually gets done in an office and that offices don't have their own set of distractions. People can also slack off in an office too, or become so distracted by others that their velocity suffers. Measuring employee performance seems to be a continual struggle that has no relation to in-office vs remote workers. If you can't accurately measure success & value generation of remote workers, you probably also can't measure office worker's either. Just checking that someone is physically in their seat doesn't actually mean they're adding tangible value.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    I'm not super convinced most people will do more work on-site either, I'm just pointing out the immoral position you put yourself in by working two full-time jobs at once.
    - Klinky 4y ago
      I agree that one should not deceive their employer. At the same time, if their employer does not notice a drop in productivity/performance from the employee, what's that say about that company's ability to actually measure employee performance? I think a lot of companies have poor project management & employee performance measurements, so half the time, people only have half the picture or don't know what the heck people are supposed to be doing and if that's actually getting done. That only becomes more complicated when projects are abandoned and/or requirements shift every quarter.
      - DougN7 4y ago
        So people like the guy with two jobs should be fired if management was better. And more employee surveillance is needed to help managers do their jobs better. The other option is integrity and trust.
        Klinky 4y ago
        I agree on the latter, measure deliverables & people's contributions to the deliverables. Having paranoia that someone is working two jobs, so you need people in office or you need to install aggressive spyware is extreme.
DougN7 3y ago
Just saw this article. The guy isn’t doing anything illegal per se, but I would call him dishonest and say he is cheating both companies with his approaches. Few people could work two jobs without needing to apply these techniques. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-genz-working-2-remote-jobs-gets-away-with-it-2023-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-genz-working-2-remote-jo...

judge2020 4y ago

> But then I have to ask - if his employers are happy enough with his work to keep him around, what is the problem there? In SW environments, having the time to do more work is supposed to mean actually completing more projects. They hire you to "perform duties for x hours a day", not "complete x tasks/x story points per sprint", so if everyone on a team is taking a similar approach, your velocity might be half or less what it could be if everyone ended up on-site.

surgical_fire 4y ago
At what point does this become just creating meaningless work or pursuing initiatives that mean nothing? Do we know if the companies in the example given even support employee initiatives? And working on-site does not mean people will be more productive. A lot of people are very good at giving out the impression that they are very busy day in day out even when productivity is rock bottom.
Klinky 4y ago
> They hire you to "perform duties for x hours a day", not "complete x tasks/x story points per sprint" Then why hire salaried workers while tracking work via sprints? >your velocity might be half or less what it could be if everyone ended up on-site. This is assuming more work actually gets done in an office and that offices don't have their own set of distractions. People can also slack off in an office too, or become so distracted by others that their velocity suffers. Measuring employee performance seems to be a continual struggle that has no relation to in-office vs remote workers. If you can't accurately measure success & value generation of remote workers, you probably also can't measure office worker's either. Just checking that someone is physically in their seat doesn't actually mean they're adding tangible value.
- judge2020 4y ago
  I'm not super convinced most people will do more work on-site either, I'm just pointing out the immoral position you put yourself in by working two full-time jobs at once.
  - Klinky 4y ago
    I agree that one should not deceive their employer. At the same time, if their employer does not notice a drop in productivity/performance from the employee, what's that say about that company's ability to actually measure employee performance? I think a lot of companies have poor project management & employee performance measurements, so half the time, people only have half the picture or don't know what the heck people are supposed to be doing and if that's actually getting done. That only becomes more complicated when projects are abandoned and/or requirements shift every quarter.
    - DougN7 4y ago
      So people like the guy with two jobs should be fired if management was better. And more employee surveillance is needed to help managers do their jobs better. The other option is integrity and trust.
      - Klinky 4y ago
        I agree on the latter, measure deliverables & people's contributions to the deliverables. Having paranoia that someone is working two jobs, so you need people in office or you need to install aggressive spyware is extreme.

DougN7 3y ago

Just saw this article. The guy isn’t doing anything illegal per se, but I would call him dishonest and say he is cheating both companies with his approaches. Few people could work two jobs without needing to apply these techniques. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-genz-working-2-remote-jobs-gets-away-with-it-2023-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-genz-working-2-remote-jo...