[danw1979]

I don’t know what to think about the “overemployment” trend that the pandemic and remote working has ushered in.

Most contractors seem to have no mutuality of obligation to their clients and I have friends running two and three gigs who claim their clients are happy.

I’ve had contract engineers who were obviously engaging in the practice though, and it drove me up the wall.

It just seems so dishonest and at the same time perfectly legal.

[MarcelOlsz]

How many CEO's and "advisors" and board members do you know "juggling" multiple jobs? I think it's "all of them".

[danw1979]

I don’t disagree, but their contracts, in my experience, specify a specific amount of time that will be delivered to each engagement that is up front about it not being “full time”.

e.g I worked with a non-exec board member who gave us 5 days a month in exchange for a certain amount of equity in the company.

[rad_gruchalski]

> I think it's "all of them".

No. Not all of us.

[rangerelf]

Why? Why do you say "it drove you up the wall"?

A contractor owes you exactly what's on the contract, usually a certain amount of work delivered; what she/he did outside of that is (or should be) of absolutely zero interest to you, unless it's some kind of corporate spying or other illegal or unethical behavior.

A full-time employee is usually working based on a certain number of hours, so they owe the company exactly those hours, no more no less; if during those hours they perform satisfactorily, again, anything they do outside those hours should hold zero interest to you.

Your coworkers are right: if they can successfully deliver results while juggling multiple jobs, why does that drive you up the wall?

[danw1979]

The problem is, they interview well and start off performing to expectations, but then _something_ happens and the agreed hours (which is basically how all “individual” IT contracts are negotiated and paid in the UK) are just not being worked, stuff doesn’t get delivered on agreed timescales, etc.

[yieldcrv]

This is pretty much the first time that it is possible to have 2+ main jobs.

It has always been common to have a main job and a side gig, a main job and moonlighting in hospitality or service industry.

Just get your deliverables in, use separate company laptops. The incentives for overachieving are non-existent, oh wow a 5% bonus/raise dangled in front of you for even more responsibility versus an entire parallel salary and compensation package at the expected contribution level.

[whateveracct]

If you want exclusive professional [1] access to an engineer's talents, pay them guaranteed salary + benefits in exchange for them signing a contract that precludes other employment.

[1] Many engineers will have side projects that they spend time on anyways. They may even care about & prioritize them more than your projects, no matter how much you pay them!

[jokethrowaway]

That's what contractors have been doing since forever.

The output requested at a job can often be "not that much".

Where you lose me is on employment contracts making this illegal, that's quite a risky proposition.

Why not just get jobs as a contractor and be upfront?

[danw1979]

Almost all permanent employment contracts for professional positions in the UK have a “mutuality of obligation” clause which forbids the employee from working for another company at the same time.

Contractors usually don’t have this, which is why it’s perfectly legal for them to run two or three concurrent gigs, but when I’ve engaged a a “full time” contractor who is doing this, their performance - the amount they get done vs what is expected given their day rate - is terrible.

[jklm]

The 24 they mention in the article are full time it looks like - does that change your mindset either way?