CEO told to die in a car crash after firing engineers who had two full-time jobs
- Reference: 1666168208
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/10/19/overemployment/
- Source link:
The COVID-19 pandemic brought a seismic shift to the workplace as office workers were encouraged to perform their roles from home in order to limit the spread. Since the madness has calmed, many have opted to continue working this way or in hybrid arrangements where the employee comes in for a number of days each week.
Many workers who were able to do their job from home liked it. They could focus better without the hustle and bustle of office life and it put an end to onerous and expensive commutes. It has also given parents more flexibility. Of course, just as many didn't like it for various reasons, usually social or the importance of face-to-face communication in their job.
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Leaders of companies, on the other hand, feared it would be a productivity drain or, worse, lead to an inability to determine productivity. Last year [2]"overemployment" became a "trend," with articles from [3]The Wall Street Journal and [4]Forbes reporting on the sensation of people who used lockdown restrictions to work two full-time jobs without letting either employer know. While some workers would view this as a finger to Western capitalism, bosses don't take too kindly to the chicanery involved in pulling this off.
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This is exactly the situation Davis Bell, CEO of cloud-based accounting practice management software company Canopy, seems to describe [7]in his post on the social network for suits.
"This is not about side hustles or moonlighting," he said. "These were people holding down two full-time synchronous jobs and lying about it – trying to be in two meetings at once, etc. Their early performance was really bad, and fortunately we have great managers who sniffed them out very quickly," the cloud CEO explained.
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"Whenever I read stories in the media about people doing this I'm usually surprised that they don't make a bigger deal of the core moral issues at play: 'working' two full-time jobs is stealing, and it also involves a great deal of lying and deception."
He continued: "I guess some people feel that stealing from companies is less wrong than stealing from individuals. In reality, companies are owned by people – either directly, in the case of our employees, or indirectly, by the retirement funds that are invested in venture and private equity and investment funds that own companies. You're stealing from those who are depending on you to get work done and whose careers ride on the success of the companies for which they work.
"And finally, you're very likely stealing a job from someone who wants and needs it."
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Bell then listed what could be deemed "red flags" from the sacked engineers after they joined Canopy including:
Turning their LinkedIn profile to private after being hired so they didn't have to update their job to Canopy
Not signing up for benefits
Camera off in meetings
Slow responses over Slack or email
Frequently late or absent from meetings
Working for very large companies "where it seems it may be easier to hang out and hide divided efforts"
He noted that one or more of these may not necessarily mean you're pulling the wool over your employer's eyes. For example, staff often have the camera off during meetings because A) they look and feel awful after more than two hours of trying to get two young children to where they need to be before work; B) they went to bed too late and are inhaling coffee; C) ain't nobody got to see that. Some are often a couple of minutes late to a meeting because they've already started work and haven't noticed the time – but at least they turn up.
[10]India's IT services sector wants workers back in offices – but not all the new hires
[11]Microsoft highlights 'productivity paranoia' in remote work research
[12]BT CEO orders staff: Back to the office or risk 'disciplinary action'
[13]Red Hat says staff can stay away from the office forever
Earlier this year, a poster on the infamous subreddit of indignant wageslaves, [14]r/antiwork , claimed that they had managed to fully automate their job and hadn't told anyone about it:
I work for a mid-size lawfirm that hired me as an IT specialist to handle all of their digital evidence for trials. The law-firm was in the process of changing their evidence managing system to Cloud based and wanted me to to be the only person with admin access to the Cloud, everyone else would be limited to view only and would work on a local network drive. Sounds great, but I quickly realized this was the only task they expected me to perform in my 8-hour shift. This was in no way an 8-hour job, so I was stuck finding busy work at the office most of the time.
Then COVID happened and I was asked if there was any way I could work from home. I set up a remote workstation, tunneled it to my house, and that's when the real fun began. In about a week I was able to write, debug, and perfect a simple script that performed my entire job. It essentially scans the on-site drive for any new files, generates hash values for them, transfers them to the Cloud, then generates hash values again for fidelity (in court you have to prove digital evidence hasn't been tampered with). I clock in every day, play video games or do whatever, and at the end of the day I look over the logs to make sure everything ran smoothly... then clock out. I'm only at my desk maybe 10 minutes a day.
As far as anyone knows, they continue to "play video games or do whatever" while on the clock. The poster was hailed as a hero, with the most upvoted comment saying: "Think of your wages as a subscription service to your automation program." The solution, if true, of a batch script with "portions of PowerShell" certainly showed some know-how and could be seen as a work undertaking itself that freed them up for "passion projects" – or indeed another job altogether.
Canopy's Bell, however, turned comments off on his post after he received a phone call from someone telling him they hope he dies in a car crash. The "rant" was found and [15]shared on r/antiwork .
The comments on that post were far less accommodating. "It's yet more 'rules for thee but not for me' bullshit," one said. "They're free to chase whatever profit they want in whatever manner they want but the idea of an employee being anything other than a serf bound solely to them and them alone clearly gets their blood boiling."
The problem seems to be that CEOs can come across as deeply privileged. The hard work and enormous intellect that it may or may not have taken to get there does not matter. Bell not only lists himself as Canopy CEO but also as "Angel Investor (various)." Though he told [16]Insider that his investor gig only takes up an hour a month, this would still count as having more than one job to people on the street.
Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. How does he have time for both those roles, but a lowly engineer can't possibly perform two jobs? Note that in a scene from BBC documentary [17]The Elon Musk Show , Musk is seen patrolling Tesla offices, complaining that staff weren't at their desks after 9pm, but who was holding down the fort at SpaceX as he did that?
Jack Dorsey was CEO of Twitter and Block for a time. Jeff Bezos also somehow managed to helm Amazon and Blue Origin simultaneously. All this says to ordinary people is that if you're worth billions, you can do whatever you want.
All the while those at the coalface, those actually solving problems, netting sales, talking with customers, scrubbing toilets have no idea what it is a CEO actually does.
In Bell's case, it was the engineers' poor performance and workplace verification that exposed them within the first three months, but – surely – if you can work two jobs effectively with no one being the wiser, that's the employer's problem, not yours. We've set up a poll below for your amusement, and if you're "overemployed," why not tell us how you got away with it – or got fired – in the comments. ®
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[2] https://overemployed.com/
[3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-people-who-work-from-home-have-a-secret-they-have-two-jobs-11628866529
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/08/15/the-remote-trend-of-working-two-jobs-at-the-same-time-without-both-companies-knowing/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y0-KutAWV7RtrCgyQeXZwQAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[7] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6986537924460785664/
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[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/tcs_wipro_infosys_labor_issues/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/microsoft_highlights_productivity_paranoia/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/21/bt_ceo_orders_staff_back/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/red_hat_wfh_policy/
[14] https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s2igq9/i_automated_my_job_over_a_year_ago_and_havent/
[15] https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/y3lsk5/ceo_rant_on_linkedin/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
[16] https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-viral-linkedin-post-engineers-working-two-jobs-overemployment-theft-2022-10?r=US&IR=T
[17] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001d1n9/the-elon-musk-show
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Judge on results, not appearances
It's a difficult one. Like you say, if someone is doing everything expected of them and in good time, then the company has no cause for complaint IMO. However when it results in people regularly missing important meetings, being slow to react or unavailable when required, it becomes more of an issue as the double-job aspect is harming performance.
Rather than complaining about stealing or crap like that, this CEO should be talking about performance. If holding down two jobs is negatively affecting performance, by all means fire the engineers. But don't do it "just because" they have a second job.
Re: Judge on results, not appearances
They weren't fired for having 2 jobs, they were fired for getting ahead and that is not allowed in the current financial world order.
Re: Judge on results, not appearances
This is BS for a simple reason, unpacking that “if”.
In *most* jobs, that “if” is flatly impossible. Try teaching two classes of children at the same time, working on two construction sites at the same time or being a barrister in two courts at the same time.
So this isn’t about those jobs, it’s rather specifically about software-type jobs, where productivity is both difficult to assess and varies staggeringly widely. We’ve all heard about the 10x productivity engineer, and there aren’t many of them. But the reality of the job, without making any moral judgement is that there are a lot of 0.3x productivity engineers. That’s very much within normal statistical bounds, and still employable. Try being a 0.3x productivity teacher and see how long you last.
Sorry to disillusion you, salaries aren’t set by“fair days work for a fair days pay”, it’s roughly “total output of company minus profit, divided by staff”. So when you see a “market rate for the job” of £50k, that’s not for a 1x engineer. That’s *mostly* paying the 3x engineers, with the 0.3x guys along for the ride. Theres just no way a UK company could afford to pay current market rate if all they had was 1x engineers.
That approach *does work* in theory, and is in operation today. It’s how the software job market in India works. There’s lots of 0.3x guys, and a few 3x guys, but there it’s considered perfectly normal for the 3x guys to work 3 jobs. Nothing wrong with it. And the local market rate exactly matches that culture. Indian engineer “market rate” is half ours mostly because of that one fact. That’s what makes the numbers add up.
So, if you want a culture of being allowed to work two jobs, be careful of what you wish for. All you are voting for is a jobs market where the salary in each job is half what it is today. And further caution - you *think* you’re the 2x guy. But most people who think that are wrong, for exactly the same reason management can’t really tell who is productive your own estimate is wildly inaccurate. Most people voting for two-jobs culture are actually voting for large total wage *cuts* for themselves, they just don’t realise it.
Another example: how often have you heard the trope from the USA “single mom worked hard to raise me, had three jobs”. I’m not beating on that single mom,it’s just the reality of life in some parts. But what do you think those jobs *are*? Do you think she has a high standard of living, working three jobs and probably 90hours+ per week. No. Go figure out why.
Re: Judge on results, not appearances
True, but as devils advocate (I'm actually sorta on the fence TBH) then there is the thought of this.
If they want to work two jobs I'll pay them the rate, but they are now a contractor so they can offer their work out. Insurance, benefits, paid time off are now longer a problem.
If they are that good they are doing there work in half the time, maybe I should give them enough tasks to justify paying a full time wage.
Maybe I should get rid of some staff because there's obviously more staff than capacity.
If he'd stuck to just saying it was a conflict of interest, he'd have a point. Even saying that it would impact their performance would be a point. "Stealing time" is stupid.
A manager who doesn't know what his staff are doing or doesn't ensure they are pursuing an ongoing task is one who represents an immediate cost-saving.
I think the issue is honesty. If the perps had told their employers - both of them - what they were doing, there'd be no issue. But hiding it is a no-no.
I don't like Elon Musk any more than any other sane person, but at least he's upfront about his divided workload and attention.
I did this between two jobs
New company wanted me to start on a Friday (get the office and computer setup out of the way and hit the ground running on the Monday), old company wanted me to finish on the Friday...
Both sets of managers knew about it though - and it was for one day.
It did cross my mind that I could have simply not resigned my previous role, and I don't think anyone there would have noticed (large consulting firm I'd been TUPE'd into and then spent months not getting any work at all, to the extent that my manager frequently took weeks to answer emails about the processes involved) - but integrity put a stop to that idea...
"an inability to determine productivity"
And that's the crux of the issue.
Managers today have to deal with the consequences of COVID, whic is mainly that their staff is no longer always there to be counted and under surveillance.
Maybe the pandemic willl have a good consequence, as in managers will start to pay attention to results, not just attendance.
But of course, that would mean that managers would actually become intelligent.
In what universe is that going to happen ?
Re: "an inability to determine productivity"
I think middle-management is ridiculously bloated anyway after the last 12 years of loose financial policy anyway and most companies falling into growth traps. It seems the people even in tech doing the actual "work" are grossly outnumbered by project managers, program managers, committees, directors etc. etc. whom all need to be present in meetings to make it seem like they are necessary.
what are contracts for?
My full-time academic contract says I can't work for anybody else without permission, and can't work for anybody more than one day a week unless I reduce my hours. Does industry not do that?
Re: what are contracts for?
My employer won't allow me to take up any employment where there's a potential conflict of interest (specifically, same industry, demands on time could impact on my performance in my current job).
I do work self-employed doing totally unrelated stuff outside of day-job work hours, which I told my employer about, and this was OK-ed with little more than the wave of a hand.
Against all odds, I find myself siding with the CEO here, as a matter of principle.
When you sign a full-time contract, it does not mean that you can do task X and task Y and once those are done you are free to do as you wish. No. A full-time contract means that you commit to provide your full attention and skills (as listed in the job description) to the company for N hours a week. Even if there's nothing to do. Even if you are bored. Even if your skills are wasted.
If instead you want to have exciting tasks all the time, want to fully exploit your skills and your speed, and want to make an extra buck by working for multiple companies, then your best bet is to become an external contractor that gets deliverable-based contracts. You deliver X within this timeframe, we pay you this much, no matter whether you worked 100% or 10% of the time on it, and no matter what other things you did.
But of course people will never choose this. Because if something goes bad and they can't deliver, they are not paid. And if no one needs anything from them, they don't get any contracts. People want the freedom and excitement and potentially high income of doing multiple things, but at the same time they want the security of a standard contract based on hours. That's not how it works. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You want the security of a full-time contract?
Then you are bound to spend those 40 hours doing nothing other than being available for your company. That's what the contract says. If you don't like it, become an external contractor. Choose your path and own the drawbacks that come with it. Stop whining and demanding to have everything you want.
In large unionised companies, its often quite difficult to get fired.
Half-ass your job, don't show for a week and self-cert, etc. Eventually they will put you on a performance improvement plan and when that fails they will move towards dismissal. But all of this will take a year or more.
But you'd have to check what is covered by the companies definition of 'Gross Misconduct' as that usually allows them to bypass the performance route.
If job security is not a factor, and the sector is big enough that you won't get blacklisted, then you could possibly manage to 'work' 3 or more 'full-time' jobs this way.
So what about the rules ?
German labour and tax laws would not let mere worker bees do this. Your employer has to be asked and can dictate that you do not accept even a one hour part time job when employed as that might reduce your owed working output for the full time employer so you need his written permission, even for a weekend job. Tax laws are even weirder here, in any case you have to report your second job before doing it.
One time helps or help for neighbours or family members as well as a regular "Ehrenamt" (voluntary unpaid work for charities and suchlike) dont count if unpaid so if you want to reduce your productivity, that would be the way to go. ;)
Main issues with work from home really seem to be control issues of every kind, management incapable of defining and controlling goals, unclear tasks for the "homies", maybe lingering distrust that nothing will get done if the eye of wannebegod does not linger above the peons.
So basically, much of this mess is due to management incapable of or refusing to do their job.
Oh, btw. CEOs, politicians and suchlike can have lots of full time jobs in germany, too.
Must be nice if you are the one who can approve of you taking unlimited "jobs", no matter of the quality of your "work" or wether you get anything done at all.
Seems straight-forward
Two jobs, each completely independent of the other and compartmentalised for confidentiality and such like - no issue.
Two jobs, both nine-to-five... not so good.
then clock out. I'm only at my desk maybe 10 minutes a day.'
Now this young man has middle management written all over him...
Only if he keeps up with his TPS reports..
Judge on results, not appearances
If people can deliver the results required of them (including confidentiality) while also working elsewhere, none of the companies they are working for has any cause for complaint.