I’m an ‘overworker’ and have 3 FT jobs - AMA

[SallyGs]

Ive had a few people now mention on the careers topic to do an AMA so am taking the plunge.

An overworker is someone who holds multiple full time roles at the same time. Started in the US and became big during COVID - for obvious reasons as it’s pretty much impossible to do with non remote work.

I currently have 3 full time jobs, at my peak I had 5 during 2020. And am working towards buying a rental property with my additional income.

So for anyone who has wondered about it or are interested in trying it themselves - AMA

You’re still here?

nah, they’re were a shit company, went under a year later and stole lots of investors money so I’d not waste time feeling bad for them

I suppose the key here is why would they even think of using an investigator?

My work is impeccable, I over achieve, and always look available. So yes if they hired an investigator it would be obvious, but they’d need a reason typically to do that

I have indeed, maybe check posts before commenting

I don't think you're as cool as you think you are @SallyGs...

Good thing I don’t really care whether it’s cunty behaviour

You can carry on working your bottom off for one wage and I’ll enjoy being a cunt with more income and a better lifestyle for it

Who says I think I’m cool?

Although being able to pay my mortgage off at 31 is pretty cool for me

Replying to a few emails and attending the odd call is all I need to do.

this is all you need to do for three marketing roles?

Bad enough scamming your employer but when it's a start-up that's a real low

Well yes, as two roles are managing agencies doing the actual activations so it’s emails and the odd call to moan at them 90% of the time

And my primary is a strategic role, so I guide others, to do the actual work, put a few governance decks together a couple of times a year, speak at some industry events and bobs your uncle.

it’s ok, I’ll cry into my wine this evening thinking about the poor start up that scammed investors and folded after 18 months

You're clearly good at what you do. So for your main job, do you just really need to keep the plates spinning?

What about the other 2 less senior roles? I have no idea what digital marketing involves. What does your typical day look like for those roles?

The head of marketing at a national charity I worked for would do three hours, go for lunch and disappear for the day. Her main task was to analyse all reports submitted by managers in the marketing teams and report to the board and trustees. She would only talk to the managers, never the lower rungs.

When she had a baby, worked from home only coming in for board meetings.

She always attended if royalty were around though

It seemed odd at the time but normal now. Head office was in London. Her second in command moved to the peak District when she had a baby, never saw her again either.

what was the point of your post?

I mean - while working your 3 jobs, lookng after your child, you still had the time to write over 120 posts about how little work you do and how much you get paid for it??

Personally, I'm wondering when the film comes out?

This whole post has really got me thinking now! I can think of quite a few colleagues both past and present who could easily get away with doing this. Not just when WFH either. I think it would be relatively easy to juggle more than one job whilst in the office, depending on the type of work involved. There's definitely people who I can never work out what they actually do to fill their days. There's loads of them on Reddit!

Ahh, ok, you're only 31.

That explains a great deal.

You're definitely not as cool as you think you are.

Live and learn my friend.

Hi OP
I've been dipping in and out of this thread all day very interested and wanting to ask some questions- but sadly I'm one of those sad marketing directors (b2b tech) with a rather busy role so haven't had a chance to gather thoughts until now! Sorry I'm late to this party. I'm equal parts impressed and shocked at your tone but I do have some genuine questions

1. how many direct reports do you have across each roles Or are you really just managing agencies?
2. is your main role uk focused or global?
3. is your niche performance marketing?
4. you've been doing this since 2020 but you have a toddler- how did you manage these roles through maternity leave?

And finally
5) what are your ambitions? I'd like to think that someone as good as you would be more inclined to climb the ladder in one lucrative org than role the dice and increase wages short term. Or alternatively looking at pivoting to a consultancy where you can maximise earnings and flexibility?
For someone so smart this does seem somewhat of a risky to choose this path. For most of us we like the security of full time employment but you're already at risk of losing that.

You've proudly paid off your mortgage- why aren't you enjoying your family, and stretching in your main job to climb the cmo ladder more quickly?

I truly don't get it. I work in a function that a company needs to have or they need to outsource it. Engaging an external consultant to do my job would be far more expensive that what they pay me for the same amount of work. The work is not enough to fill the whole day. But if they only pay me for 2hs then I will leave as I need a full time salary.
How is this not a win-win?

Well there's some interesting questions that I imagine will never be answered.

Thankfully yes, my main role is keeping things running smoothly. I was lucky enough to be able to create my role and develop the team, so I get very little oversight in general. My team are fab, it would be an issue if anything major rocked the boat, so I know it might become an issue down the line as I’ve been pretty lucky for the past few years. And luck does usually run out, if that ever happened I’d just stop my other roles, pull back and wait for them to fire me to get the extra months worth of salary. As it’s not worth it to risk the primary too much.

Yup, I don’t know if many counterparts that do more than a few hours a day, I have a large network and most will admit freely not doing many hours. It’s very much the norm

Can you not read? Thankfully many have taken this post for what it is and asked some pretty good questions with a few posters thinking about doing the same themselves.

Wouldn't that be amazing if 30% of people took 100% of the wfh jobs by dint of being a little bit more knowledgeable and a massive blagger.

That's the society I'd like to see for the toddler that had a happy-time 'contact nap' with you today.

Thanks for participating in the thread in good faith, seems rare atm!

1 - I have 8 direct reports in my primary role, total of 46 in the department though
no direct reports in the secondary roles as they are more jnr (I’d not manage if they had reports)

2 - my primary role is for EUANZ and does involve some travel but DD has meant I’ve managed to get out of a lot since starting over working

3 - my niche is not performance marketing but our performance mkt team is included in my dept (alongside ecom and egrocery)

4 - I paused overworking during my maternity leave as that would have been a massive headache, and I’m not even sure how I’d be able to do it since I could only claim one maternity leave. My primary has an amazing enhanced parental leave set up so I dropped my 2 roles prior and got another couple after returning to work.

5 - my ambitions are to retire by 40, I’ve made substantially more than I could have imagined by doing this, yes there are risks, and yes objectively doing it in a contractor set up would be better financially, but this is the less risky option for me, based on understanding my roles and my own appetite for risk. I’ve never been a ‘career’ minded person, sounds silly but I fell into it and was promoted quickly due to having certain skills and abilities to learn faster than my peers, I want to make as much money as fast as I can with the skills and options available to me. If I had a better body I’d be doing it on only fans not in a marketing role(s) 😅

Yup, my company had to pay 5x my salary for an external consultant to cover half my role on my maternity leave. So they would never rock the boat and risk me leaving all together, it’s why I’m on a flight risk ‘register’ and they do everything they can to keep me. They are well aware I do a handful of hours a week, just not what I do with the rest of my time 😅