A work contract (or in some states even a work law) usually forbids working another full gig, so in virtually all cases those stories are severe work contract violations which get you immediately fired. Besides that, those stories are one of the reason why remote work gets more restricted. On a third point, i believe many of those people have mental health issues. It should be obvious that leading such a lifestyle isn’t compatible with a stable, truthful mental state. So i‘m not sure if there is a winner in this game.
There's a lot of things in work contracts that are not enforceable. Doesn't stop them from being put into the contract (it intimidates enough people to slow things down).
I'm going to need a bit more than "It's in the contract." What's case law and state law say about working multiple gigs? I know in most of the West Coast you can't claim IP developed outside work hours and not using work resources. Doesn't stop virtually every company here from trying.
That doesn't answer the question he's not talking about worker protection laws. He's talking about a clause in employees contracts saying they can't have a second job.
The CEO's in your country will have contract's they will just not mention anything about being overemployeed as that Standard for most CEO's.
A really rough breakdown is an employee is somebody who is bound to the directives of the company he is working for. Ie. cant by themselves choose their working hours freely (amount as well as time) or what they are working on.
This looks somewhat ok for a more in-depth explanation:
That's essentially the same criteria used in America, and CEO would generally be considered an employee in America. Where does the CEO get excluded?
Your link notes that managerial positions carry certain exemptions, which is true in my country too, but that doesn't preclude managers from being employees.
Directors are generally not considered employees unless they also work as an employee serving some other function in the business. This appears to be true in Germany as well. Are we simply mixing up directors and CEOs?
There has been a relatively recent ruling by our top (non-constitutional) court in 2019 that ruled on whether CEOs that arent (partial) owners of the company are employees. (Az.: II ZR 244/17)
They ruled only that in the specific case that the CEO was also an employee (when being fired), but they did not rule that CEOs are always employees under all circumstances.
The source below has some good extra points why its such a complicated issue.
Many of these people make a ton of money. They could retire or take a break for a decade after working 2-3 years like this. And some people are wired differently. Coming from academia where 12 hour, 6 day weeks were my life for a decade, the tech job (which was categorized back then in glassdoor as a bit demanding) was a joke. It took me months to accept that saturdays were truly free days where I didn’t have to do anything.
If I were in a company that cared less, I totally would have considered this option. But thankfully I landed in a place that let me grow at whatever pace I wanted and I focused on my main job fully and reaped it’s benefits.
It’s not for everyone. It’s not for most people. But some people seem fine with such a life. Most successful professors at least in biology I know live like that all their lives. Tbh they live quite long lived and often have the acuity in their 70s you don’t even find in the average 20yo.
I myself rejected that tbh, as much as I was able to do it. Didn’t think the mediocre crap they were doing was worth that effort. If some day I find something I truly care about maybe sure.
Policies vary. Where I work, you can seek permissions to work an outside gig that is "regular or continuing". The request might very well be met with a firm "Uh, yeah, no, nope. Not signing off on that." I actually don't know, I don't know anyone whose made the request.
On the other hand, the requirement to ask permission only applies to "regular and continuing* work. If it isn't "regular" (say, temporary contractor gigs) then there is no obligation to report or request permissions. Verbiage on the issue says the employee is responsible for making a reasonable determination on whether or not it's regular or irregular.
So, rules vary. Intel for example has baked into their employee code of conduct the assumption that some people will have outside employment &/or businesses, and simply provides a detailed code of conduct around how to navigate any issues that might arise from it: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents...
The tech world especially is in the era of the "side hustle". Taking on an actual extra full time job under the premise that a person can do both in under the nominally required 40-hour work week probably (well hell, all but definitely) pushed the limits a bit over the line, but some type of outside employment is often not impossible & well within the guidelines of many reasonable companies.
When there are loopholes, there are people exploiting them. They bear the risks and reap the rewards until the opportunities dry up. But... maybe it's a win-win situation with the employers: they have a worker good enough for the salary, which is often better than no worker, and the overworker is free to overwork.
I don't think these people have more mental health issues than people working more than 60h for a single company. It's definitely not compatible with me. I don't want to be deceiving coworkers and management to keep me afloat. But these issues aside, the idea of doubling your task pool so you can always work on the most impactful problems is enticing.
