This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
While I was working on my new book, I discovered this phenomenon known as over-employed. This is a real thing. There's a big subreddit about it. There's a couple of websites, lots of resources. Over-employed, I actually called it multi-working in my book where people work multiple full-time jobs simultaneously without either employer, or in some cases, there's three or more employers.
It's not just two, without any employer being aware of it. So the employees are essentially working these jobs at the same time, and nobody else knows, getting paid more than once, of course. Now, this is naturally a product of the pandemic or post-pandemic remote work lifestyle. Obviously, it wouldn't work if you had to be physically present for each of these jobs. A lot of these workers are discovering they don't actually do eight hours of work a day, so that's why they're able to do this.
So it's a really interesting thing. You can look at it from all different angles, but today, a caller wants to know, what are some tips for doing this successfully? So they're interested in the practical part of it. How do you actually work multiple full-time jobs simultaneously? You could be working on a side hustle as well.
Probably the same thing applies, but let's talk about it here. Detailed question coming right up. [Music]
Hey, Chris and team, this is Matt. I really enjoy the show. So, I have a secret about my job.
I really only work about three hours a day during the eight hours I'm supposed to be working. Honestly, if I worked faster, it could probably be closer to an hour and a half. Well, ever since I heard a story of people working multiple jobs at the same time and getting more than one full-time salary, naturally, I've been wondering if I could do the same thing. Leaving aside whether this is a good idea or not, what are some practical tips for managing the process? I'm thinking of things like trying to avoid meetings that are scheduled for the same time, but there's probably a lot more that I'm not considering.
Thanks for any input you have. [Music]
All right, very interesting here. Thanks for sharing your secret. It's safe with us, of course. Now, actually, as I said, I spent a good bit of time talking with people who are doing this as part of my research for the book.
I have a whole chapter on it. I just find this whole thing fascinating, but I've also always worked for myself. I've never had a real job in the sense of going to an office and working for someone else. So I guess for me, I can only have one job. There's not really a way to multi-work for myself 'cause I already do that.
But let's take the question at face value because I realize there's some ethics here. There's a whole ethical dimension to this question. There's a whole question about late-stage capitalism. Like I said, there's a lot of angles here, but let's take the question at face value. What are some practical tips for multi-working?
So practical tip number one is the choice of jobs matters a lot. Obviously, you have to be a remote worker to do this. And even so, you need to be someone who doesn't have a ton of meetings. Like I know some people who do six to eight hours a day of virtual meetings, which just seems insane to me, but there are a lot of professions that have to do that in management, in HR, and elsewhere. So you need a job where you have a good amount of time to yourself and you're not necessarily being monitored for all that time.
Okay, choice of jobs matters a lot. Next, be active where you can 'cause you're not gonna be able to be present all the time 'cause you're doing multiple jobs. So whenever possible, post messages, use Teams or Slack or whatever communication channels you have at your job. Send emails at different times. Like give the illusion that you're present more than you really are.
That's what it comes down to. Next, maintain as much separation between jobs as possible. Don't share computers. Don't do multiple jobs for different companies on the same computer. Keep in mind if you have a corporate computer or a laptop, it might have some tracking software on it.
But it also is just helpful to have a slightly different physical environment, different workspace, different desk, different table, different room if you can. And obviously people have limitations. Not everyone has two different home offices they can use for two different jobs, but whatever you can do to maintain separation, that's what you do. And then lastly, decide which job is most important to you in this situation because you're not really supposed to be doing this. So if you get found out, you might have to make a choice.
So if you have to make that choice unexpectedly, kind of know in advance, what are your priorities here? Which job is most important to you? What are you willing to let go of? And what do you want to most hold on to? All right, as I said, I wanted to take the question at face value, multi-working, over-employed.
We live in interesting times, right? Much more to share with you this year. Be sure you subscribe, tune in. It's all completely free. My name's Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
