Has anyone worked 2 jobs at the same time? Did it work?

[WishIWasACavewoman]

I'm intrigued by what seems to be a remote working-enabled trend for some people to work 2 jobs at the same time.

I don't mean people struggling on low salaries doing a cleaning or bar job in the evening, which sadly I know isn't a new thing. Or 'side hustles' like selling craftware or tuition out of hours. More like professionals using remote working to simultaneously do 2 jobs each of which is assumed to be their only job. Like this Forbes article.

I'm not looking to make my life more difficult but the appeal of a second income is obvious. I'm a senior manager with a more than FT job, but I can see that taking a single-minded approach to delivering my objectives only and not engaging with anything else would get me about 30% of my time back (this isn't my working style at all, I lean in to everything). I still don't think I could do an equivalent second job at the same time, but potentially could do a series of consultancies or freelance writing.

I'm clearly thinking about this too much, but would love to know if anyone's ever done this, and if so, whether it worked, and how you avoided melting down with the juggling, extra work and deception involved. Was it worth it?

I stand suitably reprimanded!

I have done this but by combining two p/t jobs. what helped was location, flexi hours & being able to work remotely.

my employers knew as well.

both jobs paye but i chose one to be my main job.

I don’t know, the world of work has changed so much in recent years (hours are longer, pensions have been eroded, the expectation of being contactable outside work hours is prevalent) that I am far less concerned about something like this than I used to be. If someone is fulfilling all expectations in two roles then they are clearly a hard worker.

I worked 2 part-time jobs for just over a year in my mid-twenties when DS (20) was a toddler and it was absolutely exhausting and much harder than working 1 full-time job, even though the hours of both combined to about 30 hours a week!
I would never recommend it to anyone.

A point about employment contracts - a clause about other employment might be in a contract but you don’t have to agree to it. I have often edited my employment contract and agreed a different version with the new employer before signing. It is a two-way street.

The law is for everyone and no one should be scared to negotiate.

A former colleague managed to do this for 9 months WFH. She worked F/T for us and F/T for a European company. We just thought she was lazy and useless and didn't realise how poor the quality of her work was until she jumped ship.

Most companies and all public sector bodies have standard contracts which won’t be amended.

I have a side hustle that is in office hours and earns me about 15k a year, my employers have all known about it as I need 90 minutes one day a fortnite to do it. All the rest I do out of hours. I self assess on this one and the others are PAYE so no issue. My oh is in software Dev and often has multiple projects on the go so has a ltd company for those and PAYE on his real job. His employer is aware as well. Accountant sorts out all the tax etc. I do hear of people charging say £50k for a project and then giving it to fiver. I do a lot of my copywriting using AI now I guess it's not much different.

Again, completely different situation.

The OP is talking about someone doing 2 full time jobs simultaneously. In the same hours each day.

But an individual doesn’t need to work for ‘most’ companies or public sector bodies. A statement that seems to be something of a generalisation, given the sheer number of employers in the country!

To anyone reading this, if the employer that you work for is happy to agree an amended contract at the point of hire, then there isn’t a problem.

That’s better.

Wow sounds amazing if you can pull it off! Unfortunately my job is way too busy to do this!

If you work in a specific work location (not home) you'd really struggle to do this. But if you wfh and are organised I can see how you could...

Let the OP correct me then, Onceagain, it isn't your thread to police!

I can only speak from my experience and 2 part-time jobs was too difficult even in my mid-twenties, so goodness knows how anyone would successfully manage two full-time jobs!

How feasible it is to do will depend on employment contracts, what's expected from an individual and how dishonest they have to be to keep it up. Freelancers over-committing their time is quite different from PAYE, salaried employees trying to be in two roles at once IMO.

I've come across a couple of instances of this where neither employer knew. In one case when it was discovered they were dismissed for gross misconduct from both roles and their details loaded to the Cifas internal fraud database. Not sure what happened after that but getting a job with any firm that uses the Cifas IFD (not just financial services) will be a challenge. To me, it wouldn't be worth the risk.

I’ve always worked full time, including when DD was a toddler (own company). Worked 30 hours a week while doing my GCSEs and A levels. From 19-24 I worked full time and had a second part time job. Can’t image why 30 hours across 2 jobs was so challenging. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Theoretically I could. I have a salaried p/t job and a freelance vv part time job, but am really strict about never doing any freelance work in my main work time. Its just the totally wrong thing to do, particularly as my salaried job is public sector, it's literally tax payers money and would be theft and rightly gross misconduct.

My contract specifically says something against working another job within contracted hours. A part time job is fine, though.

I need to be available at a moment's notice for calls, and my diary is complex enough as it is, even if it wasn't against contract I couldn't do it. I imagine a less forward facing role with few meetings (I'm thinking something like remote IT roles) it might be possible. But is it worth it in the end? Doubtful

Ooh, just seen all your posts! What an interesting range of experience.

So it seems that part-time main job, freelance 2nd job, back office, remote, not meeting focused, military organisation skills and balls of steel are on the (growing) list of successful criteria.

The one time I did something over a weekend and got paid for it, I donated it to my employer as they'd given me the experience which got me invited to the thing. So that probably says everything about whether I'm cut out for this. (Admittedly my employer was a charity)

When I was young & full of energy

I worked 3 jobs

1xFT job Mon to Fri days
1xPT job evenings, guaranteed minimum 16 hours
Both at the company, but different departments

1x PT job evenings & weekends

Sundays off

My employers were aware

Someone I managed did this during the pandemic! It took me a while to cotton on as she worked part time and to be honest wasn’t great at her job at the best of times.
She was supposed to be available on our instant messaging service during her working hours, but often wasn’t. And she started missing online meetings and becoming non responsive. Unfortunately I had to give her a disciplinary, but she didn’t really give a shit and left shortly after. I think she was just happy she’d got away with it for a while!

I know of one woman who was WFH on a care line covering nights whilst working as a care home night manager.
It didnt end well for her as both companies sacked her for gross misconduct as per her contracts.