[tunesmith]

I'm sorry, I just have to say it. Over-employment is unethical and SW devs just shouldn't do it. It's ethical to have multiple 1099 or corporate clients; just bite the bullet and go into business for yourself.

I don't care about arguments regarding the unethical things employers do to employees. It's wrong, period.

edit: what a trash heap of replies.

[zerohp]

Can you make a compelling argument? Just saying it’s wrong is not an argument.

If employers don’t like it then they should pay by the hour for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

[pillefitz]

I don't know about you, but my contract states I'm supposed to work X hours and includes a passage on how overtime is handled. The rest is common sense: That an additional, equivalent job can't possibly be done well.

Your employer pays for your (mental, in this case) energy.

[taxcoder]

I know accountants who work between 80 and 100 hours a week for 3 months every year. Is it miserable? Yes. Is it impossible to work that number of hours and turn out quality work? I don't think so.

[gedy]

> Over-employment is unethical

If the dev is actually not performing/delivering. If there's no complaints, and they are on salary (not hourly), what exactly is the ethical problem here?

[notahacker]

Most people consider most deception unethical. And most people would consider it unethical to exploiting the difficulty of quantifying the work they do, colleagues' misplaced trust in your estimates of how long it would take to fix and them ultimately not complaining about your performance levels mainly because they mistakenly believe you're actually trying your best and will get better in a few months time... to earn twice as much as everyone else.

For the avoidance of doubt I thought there was absolutely nothing unethical about my coworker who was approached about a job in a different timezone and told everyone he'd taken it but was happy to work before 5pm.

[gemstones]

Unethical according to your system of ethics. I never claimed that was part of my ethical system.

Unless you’re religious or something and believe in a global definition of ethics that applies to everyone, there’s no real point in telling everyone what’s unethical. Is it unethical to you? Great! Then you don’t do it. I will do what I want.

[philomath_mn]

lol, this argument could be used to justify literally any act. Our society does have a shared system of ethics, it is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

[allarm]

> Our society does have a shared system of ethics

No, it isn't. Our society is made up of many countries, something Americans often forget. And fortunately, we don't have everything in common, otherwise it would be a nightmare.

[jokethrowaway]

It's wrong if it's a breach of contract.

Nothing unethical to having multiple jobs. Plenty of poor people outside of tech do it

[RecycledEle]

A slave must not secretly sell his services without giving his master a cut, therefore masters consider this unethical.

[allarm]

> what a trash heap of replies

You should expect exactly that when using phrases like “it’s wrong, period”. There are not many things in this world that are wrong, period. Over employment is not one of them, period.

[solumos]

My contracts don't have any stipulations about outside work and don't require me to commit to a certain number of hours.

What's the meaningful ethical difference between an individual with multiple W2 income streams, and a sole prop with multiple 1099s?

[gwnywg]

I was contemplating this some time ago and realized my contract is to commit 8 hours a day to my customer. I personally could not mentally carry the weight of not delivering what I agreed and since I have family I can't do 2x8 hours a day. So your opinion makes sense to me. I personally know people who have 2+ remote jobs and I keep hearing they actually half do them and they can only do this because the work place does not seem to care.

[throwawaysleep]

For the rest of us, we call ethics problems “opportunities.”