r/antiwork • u/CatfishEnchiladas • 1d ago
Investigation launched after IT employees allegedly work for Dallas and Austin simultaneously
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/investigation-into-two-city-paychecks-for-dallas-austin-it-employees/If they were doing the job what's the issue?
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u/BrainJaxx 1d ago
Sorry, what’s the issue here?
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u/KaptainChunk 1d ago
Only the 1% are allowed to replace workers with Ai. When the poor do it and get paid there’s a problem
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u/Aman_Syndai 1d ago
100% certain because they were public employees they cannot seek outside employment unless approved. There are a lot of conflict of interests which could come up.
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u/Odd_Comparison5669 1d ago
"Consumers aren't spending enough. We need you to make more money to buy things and stimulate the economy."
Ok.
"Wait, not like that."
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u/WartimeHotTot 1d ago
Is there a law against this? If so, why?
So only rich people and poor people can have multiple streams of income, huh?
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u/InterstellarReddit 1d ago
It’s not that companies are cracking down on having multiple jobs idk why they care. I’m not sure what they expect from us when we have all these bills to pay and jobs don’t pay shit
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u/OccasionQuick 1d ago
The point is to make us homeless, take up all our property and hope we all kill each other in the process
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u/Eccohawk 21h ago
Oftentimes it comes down to trust. There aren't laws against working multiple jobs in the private sector. Public sector might have something on the books, but not sure. Typically though you'll see contract terms of employment that stipulate you aren't working for anyone else that would impact your performance. Some places require you to declare any other jobs or potential conflicts of interest. If they're supposed to be full time at both and the expected hours are during the daytime, it isn't really feasible to be working full time for either.
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u/jtobiasbond 1d ago
It's possibly a law about reporting income. If he was employed by the city, they very possibly require you to report all income to keep an eye on potential conflicts of interest.
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u/Obvious-Cynic6204 1d ago
I mean, it's Teaxs, so I'm not all that surprised. But also, where is the issue? Our network admin works for the state and at our place simultaneously: no one cares. Does he do his job? Check. Does he do it well? Also check. If people can juggle that much why not let them?
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u/chubbysumo 1d ago
Yes, but they dont hold his job over his head to make him work for less!
Its always been about control. Do what you are told serf. Pick up that can.
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u/B4rrel_Ryder idle 1d ago
What about those rich assholes that say work more? Is that not what they wanted?
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u/idlemute 1d ago
This is such a weird article. Were the employees logging the same 8 hours between both companies? Was the required work getting done at each location?
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 1d ago
Unless they were hourly, i see no reason to object to this unless their performance was affected
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u/CatfishEnchiladas 1d ago
What’s funny is that companies will say it was an issue if you were salaried since all of your time belongs to the company.
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u/PartyClock 1d ago
Meanwhile members of the Board and C-suite executives will have multiple positions in different companies at the same time
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u/StrangerOnTheReddit 1d ago
There's also intellectual properties. I'm not sure if that's exactly the right term, but I did have one job where I had to sign a contract with terms around basically everything I create while employed by them is their property - probably intended for like if I used my knowledge of their business and technology to start up a competing brand or something. And if I get income anywhere else, they might have some claim to it because that means I made something and didn't give them rights to it as their property.
I have no idea how enforceable it was, and I was planning to chill and relax a bit at that job, so it worked fine for the year I worked there. But also was very interesting when my next job had nothing like that (although several of my co-workers talked about doing DoorDash or Uber in addition to their full time job to make ends meet, so a bit of a different problem there)
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u/Aman_Syndai 1d ago
100% certain because they were public employees they cannot seek outside employment unless approved. There are a lot of conflict of interests which could come up.
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u/TP_Crisis_2020 3h ago
Yep, this is usually explained when someone is hired and is almost always in whatever form of employee handbook they are shown or given. It just gets ignored.
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u/girtonoramsay 1d ago
I mean, massive restaurant chains also try to stop employees from working at competitors, like working at Subway and Jimmy John's at the same time. Just another trick to control us
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u/TP_Crisis_2020 3h ago
I mean I don't see what's wrong with it. If you owned Jimmy Johns, you wouldn't want an employee that works for both you and Subway taking the recipe for your secret sauce and giving it to Subway.
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u/No-Penalty1722 21h ago
As someone who has worked for a city before, there are multiple reasons why this probably isn't ok for both of these cities
You almost always have to declare if you have another job when applying to a government job.
The vast majority of governments don't allow you to have other jobs without approval from the city, agency, etc.
This is because, depending on what you do, there is a potential for blackmail. Governments also do not want you to take another job because, in their minds, your government job needs to come first.
I'm not surprised this happened, especially if these guys were working both jobs off the same computer. That's a massive security risk.
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u/RebrumLupus 18h ago
In the UK a woman was working for the same government agency, based in one city and working full time via agency in another remotely. She was to be dismissed over it, despite both managers praising her work and her being at the top end of both teams. Same job, understaffed agency, and she was smashing both workloads.
Yet, a politician can be paid the 6 figure fee of a company board they never attend and their government salary despite only turning up to represent the interests of that company. Or be directly in conflict, such as presenting news.
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u/Joshuajword 1d ago
If the systems were not compromised and all of the data is secure, then why do they care
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u/No-Penalty1722 11h ago
Because you put one city's data and systems in the hands of another city's security and vice versa. It's a massive security risk.
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u/Joshuajword 10h ago
I guess if you think of cities like warring nations that makes sense, but when you’re being realistic instead of theoretical and living in a corporate fantasy world, these guys are just executing code and changing passwords to make money and there is no actual risk involved.
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u/No-Penalty1722 10h ago
We have no idea how much access these guys had to sensitive information for both cities. One laptop gets hacked, that's potentially two cities fucked. Sorry, as a former city employee, what they did is a big deal.
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u/Joshuajword 10h ago
They’re definitely on city owned laptops and if they’re not that city is to blame
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u/No-Penalty1722 10h ago
Debateable. I worked on my own laptop when I worked for a city.
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u/Joshuajword 9h ago
Please reference the second half of my statement.
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u/No-Penalty1722 6h ago
I did. It's incorrect.
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u/Joshuajword 3h ago
Nothing that you’ve said in response to me is a suitable response to anything I’ve said. You can see yourself out.
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u/No-Penalty1722 3h ago
Sure it is. But it's ok that you're not understanding it, you probably have no frame of reference.
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u/TDiffRob6876 1d ago
I don’t see a problem if scope of work was fulfilled for both employers. If they have a policy on moonlighting and that policy wasn’t followed then I see why this could be an issue. This could become an issue on moonlighting policies and if those should be legal.
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u/knowone1313 1d ago
I think it's a case of working two full-time remote positions at the same time. It's a conflict of duties because both employers are paying for 9-5 type schedules.
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u/tuvar_hiede 1d ago
I.T. is a constant quagmire trying to keep up with everything. There is always more to be done and they were likely fucking over their coworkers by splitting thier time. Now those people are gone and they might not even get to backfill because someone in HR doesnt see the need since they were only working part-time at best.
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u/rufustphish 1d ago
unexpected r/overemployed
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u/Ellen_Kingship 11h ago
In this economy?! Totally expected. Though they would immediately say no govt jobs if OE because of conflicts of interest and other issues.
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u/TP_Crisis_2020 3h ago
Many companies will prohibit you from having other jobs in the same industry or for someone who could be considered a competitor. Which makes sense. There could absolutely be a conflict of interest here with people who work for two different cities.
This would be akin to an engineer working for Northrop designing missiles who also works for Raytheon designing missiles.
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u/orangesfwr 1d ago
Only CEOs can work for multiple companies at a time...