Many tech companies were completely remote before the pandemic, but the thriving Reddit community r/Overemployed is a 92,300-member community offering advice and tips on how to juggle work without anyone noticing, showcasing everything from How workers freed from the office can be on the radar.
Marten hosts weekly advice sessions on the community’s Discord channel to help people “optimize their earning potential,” but he doesn’t think that many people actually do multiple remote jobs. “I dare say that for every 100 people who are interested in doing this, only 20 will succeed, and of that number, only half actually do it,” says Marten, who also lives in the United States. He is one of them. Marten earns between $150,000 and $220,000 per month as a 70-hour week as a senior management consultant focused on strategy and transactions, and has worked in big tech, finance, and audit during his 15 years of overemployment contract work.
Greg works two tech jobs from his home in California, earning $200,000 a year, and gets nervous when he’s working on multiple deadlines at the same time. He deals with journal conflict by rejecting certain meetings, saying “some lies will never hurt them as long as they get good jobs.”
Recently, though, his second job required tagging him in a LinkedIn post — a reminder of his predicament at his first, of course. “I told them a doctored fact that I was being hunted by recruiters, so I decided to dormant my account,” Greg explained. “I expect these conflicts will continue because the American work culture is a death cult. I just have to hold my breath until I retire.”
Most people’s journey to overemployment begins with a second job offer and specific financial goals. Greg wanted to pay off his student loans and fund homeownership, and was proud that he was no longer living on a paycheck. Abel wanted to save four months’ salary as a down payment for his family. When they get the hang of leading a double, triple, or even quadruple career, the temptation to embrace the other (maybe even the other) grows, especially when encouraged by the community. Greg is looking for his third role with an eye toward early retirement, and Abel recognizes how difficult it is to not just keep working. “If I had no kids and no responsibilities, I would probably have a seventh job,” he said.
From a legal standpoint, it’s a bit vague. Most employment contracts will have some kind of exclusivity clause that outlines that the employee will dedicate their working hours to the job and will not work for anyone else and certainly not for a competitor. “It’s clearly a breach of contract to have a second job in this situation,” said Beth Hale, a partner at CM Murray LLP, a law firm specializing in labor law. “But there’s a good argument to say that even if there’s nothing in the contract, it’s not in the employer’s best interest to have another full-time job at the same time, because you can’t have multiple full-time jobs at the same time, can you?”
