[mise_en_place]

With this type of surveillance and the push to go back to the physical office, a lot of companies are wising up to employees who were taking multiple jobs remotely. What’s sad is that it ruins it for the rest of us, who were honest and diligently working one remote job. This is why we can’t have nice things.

[ghaff]

It's a small minority of course. But you'll even get people here vehemently arguing that essentially all is fair in love and war and screw companies anyway. So you get subreddits and news stories--which probably make it perceived as a far bigger problem than it actually is--which leads at least some companies to take action. As you suggest, you have selfish pricks ruining things for everyone.

To be clear, a small moonlighting gig that's in keeping with business rules is fine. A second full-time job is almost certainly not.

[jrjarrett]

Why not?

[ghaff]

Because of what the parent said. They're probably making life harder for their coworkers even over and above encouraging companies to put these monitoring systems in place. (Assuming, of course, that multiple jobs is not considered perfectly legit as part of employment contracts/business ethics.) And, just to go all-in, if I had a co-worker doing this and I knew it wasn't allowed, I'd probably rat them out. In fact, I expect it's entirely possible I'd be in breach of some ethics guidelines if I didn't.

[Bakary]

We have to consider the system as a whole. If the industry in question provides a clear social good, such as medicine or energy production, then there is a moral duty to snitch or perhaps confront the person and give them a chance to reform beforehand. If it's just some tech company, especially a FAANG, ratting them out just means helping elites and reinforcing systems of control for no benefit except to the elites themselves. Ethics guidelines are meaningless at best or a sick joke at worst when it comes to the vast majority of companies in the overall picture. Just another twisted, internalized abstraction in favor of the masters.

[odshoifsdhfs]

It is your problem no? If someone takes 2-3 jobs BUT still producing enough, what does it matter? If a company has a problem with it and punishes everyone, again, it is a 'you' problem.

If I am laid off (company doesn't give a shit about me), will you give me part of your salary? No right? So why the f should I care if my actions (assuming they are legal) affect you? 2 salaries? Yay, I will get to retirement in half (or less even) time. Have a problem? Well change companies or do it the same. If your company punishes everyone for a couple individual actions, they don't know how to manage people or even who is working two jobs, just a suspicion. Change jobs, but let the people that can and prefer to work 2/3 jobs, finally had an opportunity to get ahead alone. It is your problem, not theirs

[mise_en_place]

No it isn't my problem. The company I work for knows that I have a business. Because they were originally my customer. I was honest and completely transparent with them, so there was no issue. Completely different if I had kept the business and not told them about it.

It's about integrity, something many people lack here in America today. And I very much doubt they are producing enough. They are likely working 10 hours a week per job. Being both an employee and a business owner that has employees, integrity is critical to any type business relationship. It may not seem like it, but trust me, it is paramount.

[throw10920]

> And I very much doubt they are producing enough.

They're almost certainly not.

The popsci figure for how much a human can concentrate during a day is six hours. A standard 5-day 40-hour workweek already consumes that and more. I can virtually guarantee you that people working more than a single (knowledge work) job are significantly shortchanging one or both of their employers.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Why is ok for employers to have more than one employee, but not the other way around?

[gruez]

Simple, because most likely your employment agreement says that you should be devoting your full time and attention to your job for 40 hours a week or whatever. If you're pulling 80 hour weeks across two companies, there's theoretically nothing wrong with that[1], and I suspect those are not the type of people the parent poster is against. The same applies to businesses. If you had a contract with a vendor promising that you'll be their sole client, and it turns out they're actually working for other companies, that would be unacceptable as well.

[1] unless your employment agreement also specifices some sort of exclusivity.

[2ICofafireteam]

>If you had a contract with a vendor promising that you'll be their sole client ...

Where I am in Canada, I've had exclusivity required for an employment contract but only within the employer's niche and for pay well above industry norms.

The problem over here comes when the work is structured as a contractor/client arrangement.

If someone is set up as contractor, even with a registered company, they can be considered a de facto employee and have all the protections given to regular employees. Additionally the client, as the de facto employer can get in trouble for not making and remitting payroll deductions.

Even incorporating won't save you. There are several criteria but, if you're the sole employee of a corporation, you're considered a personal services business. It makes you ineligible for any corporate tax reductions, an additional 5% tax, and virtually no deductions are allowed outside of payroll expenses; even supplies and directors' action payments.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

The expectation and contractual requirement of sole employment goes against free market principles. These requirements, and absolutely the ones making any sort of restrictions on where/who someone can work for after leaving a company, should be legally unenforceable.

[gruez]

>The expectation and contractual requirement of sole employment goes against free market principles.

What "free market principles"? The wikipedia article for "free market" says:

>In economics, a free market is an idealized system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.

In this case, two parties (employers and employees) are voluntarily entering into a contract without government coercion. I fail to see how that's against "free market principles".

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

In idealized concept, all participants must be free to buy and sell their goods and services to all other participants. A market where buyers can only buy from certain sellers or sellers can only sell to certain buyers isn't free regardless of whether the constraints are government mandated or privately decided. For example, if the owners of all the food production refused (on their own accord) to sell to certain groups because of their ethnicity, that wouldn't be a free market. Also in the vast majority of cases, the employee has much less negotiating power than the employer. So 'voluntarily ' here has the same meaning as voluntarily giving your wallet to mugger pointing a gun at you. In this analogy the gun is potential homelessness and starvation.

[gruez]

>In idealized concept, all participants must be free to buy and sell their goods and services to all other participants.

And who uses "free market" to mean the definition you just proposed?

>For example, if the owners of all the food production refused (on their own accord) to sell to certain groups because of their ethnicity, that wouldn't be a free market.

1. While I agree the example you gave is undesirable, the unclear whether the badness stems from "buyers can only buy from certain sellers" or something else. An easy test of this would be: if I refuse to buy widgets from Acme Co. because they also make cluster munitions, does that mean I'm violating free market principles?

2. how does exclusivity agreements play into this? Are they all against your definition of "free market"?

>So 'voluntarily ' here has the same meaning as voluntarily giving your wallet to mugger pointing a gun at you. In this analogy the gun is potential homelessness and starvation.

This is a terrible analogy because homelessness and starvation is the natural state of things, but the same can't be said of a bullet traveling towards your head at 300 m/s.

[ghaff]

So work as a part-time contractor in that case. The issue isn't working for more than one company--many do--but being dishonest about it.

[iamacyborg]

Those are really not comparable things.

[commandlinefan]

That was my first thought - I hate this, but I understand why they're doing it.