22-year-old holds two full-time jobs at the same time – bosses know nothing about it

Anyone who has two full-time jobs at the same time is in most cases overchallenged and in some certainly underchallenged. The latter applies to a programmer from the USA. 22-year-old Jason has two jobs, but not because he can’t otherwise finance his living. Rather, he had too little to do in one job. After a year, he found he could do 10 to 15 hours a week, which his boss gave him a full week to do.

At first he didn’t even think about two full-time jobs. Rather, he was considering whether to take on a part-time job or a few more projects as a freelancer. But things turned out differently: Since he works in the home office and his supervisor apparently cannot understand the work performance, he decided to continue working as a permanent employee. However, he uses tricks so that he can juggle the two jobs at the same time.

On the one hand, he pretends that a task takes longer than necessary. He often keeps the result to himself for a while before submitting it. On the other hand, he tries not to appear too competent so that he can continue to be assigned simple tasks. Some work, such as checking the tasks of his colleagues, is neglected. He rejects some projects on the grounds that he already has enough on the table.

The US Magazine Business Insider dug up the story. Jason wants to remain anonymous because, of course, his superiors don’t know anything about his commitments. If they knew, he would probably be fired. Although double employment is not prohibited in the USA, the bosses could express their distrust. To prove that the programmer was telling the truth, he had to provide supporting evidence.

Jason’s annual salary has increased from $75,000 to $144,000. According to the company, the two full-time jobs together would require 20 to 30 hours a week. This is still well below the usual weekly working hours in the USA. As in Germany, this averages around 40 hours per week. However, second jobs are not uncommon.

In the USA, experts refer to this working model as “overemployment”, in Germany the term overemployment is used for this. According to Fortune Magazine in the US, around half of the workforce would work more than one full-time job. In Germany, this applies to every fifth person. However, Corona fueled the trend. Inflation is also driving people to take up second jobs.

Secondary employment is not prohibited by law in this country either. However, it is common practice to explicitly stipulate in employment contracts that employees must inform their superiors about additional earnings. Jason would not only cheat his employer, but in case of doubt even break the contract. In this case, termination without notice would be at least legally effective in this case.