You Had One Job! No, Wait…
The Coronavirus has many of us still working remotely. And a natural part of that remote work, I’ve found, has been a propensity to work more than normal or necessary.
In a lot of ways, work is the one constant that I have some control over. I may not be able to control Covid, or people who choose not to wear masks, or people who choose not to take the vaccine… but I can control the small parcels of work that pass by desk and Inbox.
I can write some code, I can update some tests. I can improve a thing. I can leave the Github repository I work in a little better than I found it.
Working more seems a natural extension of working from home. Likely an unhealthy habit for both me and Liz, but we’ve found we tend to be working more, day to day.
What I didn’t imagine: people working less while also working more. Namely: people taking on a second job, and juggling it at the same time as their first.
The WSJ article title pretty much says it all: These People Who Work From Home Have a Secret: They Have Two Jobs.
Taking on a second job seems like a crazy amount of work, until you consider slowing down your output for both jobs. Doing the bare minimum to skirt by, without getting in trouble or found out? That’s pretty risky. But the reward of double your salary seems incredibly, incredibly tempting.
The article also has some gems, in terms of quotations:
I don’t know if I could ever really do something like this. It’s a big gamble, and I feel like if you’re ever found out… you’ve burnt some serious bridges. I’m reminded of polyphasic sleep, and the incredible upside to a thing that requires an equally incredible amount of effort.
Working two jobs feels like something I could potentially do, if I really forced myself. But doing a job… poorly? Intentionally poorly? That seems actually harder.
Then again though, double paycheck.
[Illustration by Sam Peet]
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