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this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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they aren’t “double dipping.” that phrase means “taking more than you are allowed.” having a second job is just having a second job. the person writing the title either is tone def or doesn’t agree with the article.
The double dipping is referring to doing both jobs simultaneously. Like two remote jobs and you have both work laptops open, so between two jobs you can work 40 hours per week but be paid for 80. It's distinctly different from clocking in for one job, then clocking out and going to another job and clocking in for that job.
If both sets of 40 hours are meeting goals then the company can shut the fuck up, morally speaking.
You're basically just criticizing capitalism for being stupid and inefficient, and I 100% agree with you.
But are they? Generally in tech, it's really hard to gauge people's performance and most companies are conservative with firing people for performance reasons. So you could coast by on mediocre performance. You team won't be happy with you, but you probably will keep your job simply because you're given the benefit of doubt. Tech is one of those areas where someone can actually be 10x as effective as another person, because so much of the job can be spent on stuff like debugging and dealing with weird issues, where one person might spend all day on an issue that another person can resolve in minutes.
There's also something to be said about the fact that companies are usually paying for your time, not output. Contractors are the ones who are paid for output, not employees. It's also straight up expected in tech that you're looking for ways to automate some tasks so they don't have to be done anymore. It's not like some mindless office job where you're expected to do X reports per day. There's a never ending list of bugs to fix and features requested. You're generally paid to find ways to increase productivity, not merely do the same thing over and over.
At any rate, tech is usually also paid well enough for it. There's still massive income disparity between regular workers and C-suite, but at least the pay is always well, well above living wages, stock options are commonly given to regular workers, and high performers often are rewarded for doing better than average. IMO, tech jobs aren't really an area to focus on the kinda mindset you have, since it does so much better than most (not perfect, but still far better). Most jobs don't get anything close to what tech jobs offer to regular employees.
I have a buddy working for redacted ultra mega corpo company, he works remote and regularly places 1st in all metrics they measure. He also finishes his whole work day in about 45 minutes. Getting good at your job can 100% mean you're doing the same amount of work as someone less skilled in half or less the time.
It is quite hard to get fired from a lot of corporate jobs. Mostly because they rely on metrics and don't actually pay attention to the people. As long as you're hitting the metrics they have no reason to look any deeper.
It's kind of depressing that they treat you like that but also sort of relieving.
It's not just Tech. Two people I work with, One can format a Word document 5x faster. With the logic of some of these people, the slower person should be fired for it? I don't get it.
What if a compile job takes a long time? Would that be a good reason to context switch?
Are you being honest with your second job that you're only going to do your job during the stretches of job #1 that require long compile times?
It's like dating two people but pretending to be monogamous with each. It might work for a bit but at some point you will need to choose one over the other.
Maybe, maybe not. I've heard of people doing this stuff for a LONG time.
But it doesn't matter, does it? If you are forced to choose one over the other, you've still made a lot of extra money on all the double-dipped hours you've accrued up to that point.
That's true but that reflects more on how bloated and inefficient the tech sector is. And now the other shoe is dropping with mass layoffs.
The layoffs are a power grab against wage increases. Companies have been reporting record profits for years, inefficient my ass.
If you can do your allotted work in less time you're just more productive, if a company gave a shit about this they could solve the problem by having a direct compensation increase for work load increase. After all, the employment negotiation happened in the interview. Responsibilities and compensation are already decided upon, it's insane that you can just be handed more work because you're too good to do the work they gave you slow enough. If the workers actually had power in the negotiation like free market morons think they do, they'd be able to adjust their own salary when the employer adjusts their workload. Since they can't, the balance of power is obviously squarely in the employers court.
Want them to do more? Pay them more and then give them more responsibilities. It's so easy to solve, but companies think they can just extract more effort for the same dollar they agreed upon when the employee was hired. Ludicrous.
The article cites tech workers double-dipping on $250,000 salaries. It's clearly not about not getting paid enough.
That's a great analogy.
If you're getting the work done you're getting the work done.
Bottom line is that companies don't pay you for being more productive, so you have to pay yourself by working two at the same time and getting both done. If you fail to perform, sure, get fired. As long as the product is there, it's just a worker ensuring they are getting the money they deserve for their production capacity.
The company is paying you for your time, therefore that time is theirs. If you have two companies paying for the same 40 hours, whose time is it and which gets priority when there is an urgent matter? You're stealing the time resource that they're paying for if you're double dipping. It's greedy and unethical.
If you want to be paid for your production capacity, go independent and pick up jobs where they pay you on job completion.
It's absolutely insane to me how many people think this is ok. I don't know if it's just the particular demographic of Lemmy or not, but god damn. People like that are in for a rude awakening when their jobs are outsourced. Because if companies are going to deal with people working two jobs at the same time, why not pay a fraction for it and deal with it in India.
I work in automation. We've had a few customers who wanted to keep employing people from their local area; trying to help the community and all that. Each of these customers had gotten back to us after some time because 'F these people. They act like they don't want to work and are a pain in the ass'. Long story short, we automated their jobs and they were given their final paycheck.
I can only assume these people who are double dipping are doing the bare minimum for each job, otherwise how can they do two jobs in the same time period. I wouldn't be surprised if one day their employers get tired of their antics and removed their jobs.
Unless you are hourly, they are paying you for your work. Salary does not mean you work a consistent 40 hours. Some salary positions require more than 40 hours to do and some are highly variable. It does not seem like you have had any jobs with measurable KPIs.
So if they're paying you for your work, I assume you can come and go as you please then. No need to be at work during specific hours of the day.
I've always worked for small companies where I'm working directly with the owner of the business most days. I don't need KPIs because the owner can see my performance on a daily basis.
Yeah but the alternative is that I spend the rest of the time on on here. If the company aren't keeping me busy that's their problem