Q&A August 2022
A rolling Question and Answer session for August 2022
Welcome again to this month's rolling Q&A. Again, just like last month we will take questions throughout the remainder of the week.
Q&A Summary
A side business or a second job (Side business)
Where to find a second job
Do I quit my second job while I change my day job (No)
Second Laptop (an oversight on our part)
Last month's absolutely frenetic session for your reference:
Again here's a broad list of where we feel our expertise sits:
Recruitment (and how best to use external recruiters),
Remote work and managing remote teams
Outsourcing and managing outsourced teams and freelancers (APAC focus)
Time management (a recap + a few more Au techniques)
Time management and processes for sales & sales roles
Managing stakeholders in family business' (carry the donkey)
How to design process (broadly)
Having said that if we'll always take a look and if something is outside our wheelhouse we'll do our best to refer out to another BowTied or somewhere that can assist you.
As always if you'd prefer to submit (more) anonymously, you can reach us via
bowtiedhippopotamus@gmail.com
Or on the bird app (Direct Messages welcomed)
@BowTiedHippo_
To open proceedings here's a few questions that we've received in the last month. We've edited these to add clarity where possible to preserve anonymity (as much as we can - realistically the jungle is afternoons work to doxx for a serious operation with a few rightful exceptions!
Q
I want to get a second job and/or scale my content site when working full time. Which option do you recommend?
My main job also has provisions against working another job, so I'll need to keep it away from them.
Where do you recommend looking for a job?
First things first - consider putting the focus on your content site side business and scaling that. A lot of our writing is actually nudging people away from working two jobs. A few things to assess here (refer back to Parts II and III of our note); a second job can immediately boost your cash flow, however longer term a business will be much better for you. A side business also really neatly sidesteps a lot of scheduling conflicts and time management issues - it's a lot easier to manage a "Boyfriend" job when it's "you".
"Keeping it away" from your main job. Yes absolutely, do that. Realistically it'll take some time for them to detect you, especially if you're working remote for both jobs. Parts I and Part IV (which, surprise surprise; we're still writing) has really concrete tactics around how to manage your days and weeks and avoid the obvious traps (wherever possible we advocate for "upstream" scheduling based decisions)
Where to look for a second job is something that we've not really touched on. At a pinch BowTied Fox has guides on where to find and assess remote jobs
You could also try r/overemployed potentially. In the spirit of full disclosure we've not assessed or read those resources - but Fox should be solid.
We'll likely expand this section a little bit later on. Again, our recommendation is really skewed toward finding "Boyfriend" jobs - which aren't necessarily full time, are more flexible and know about your main / "Husband" job. Ways to find these are through either your existing network or online networks and communities (or potentially, starting a service business yourself:
And/or .
Failing that, if you've assessed your situation and it's two Husbands all the way (ideally you're working remote for both jobs and you're an obscure technical specialist) the usual application process and job boards / LinkedIN etc. Is what you're looking for. During the interview process do your best to assess how feasible this work environment will be to support your plans.
Q
I currently have a full time onsite job, and a part time remote job. At my full time job, it's not a great situation so I'm going to find another job and quit (it'll be in 3 months).
Given that I'm uncertain how the new work situation will be like in my new full time job how do I manage my remote part time job? For example, do I take unpaid time off for X months while I get up the curve?
Also, in my current day job, I am able to log in remotely using TeamViewer to my own desktop and help out in part time job. But in the new day job, I am not sure if TeamViewer or other remote apps will be blocked.
Ok - few things to unpack here (actually quite a few)
Time Off
Wherever possible we wouldn't recommend taking unpaid time or time off if you can help it. From memory the older WSP estimation was a 1:4 ratio to get back on track after time off (i.e. One month off without income will take you four months to get back to where you would've been. Brutal).
At a high level, if your part time job doesn't know that you're already working full time it gets a little tricky to manage (see part III for some wording / phrasing to help manage them, but don't disclose if you don't have to).
If you think that your new day job is going to be in the office / on-site then you *may* have to pause or take some time off your part time job while you reset all the day job factors we cover in part II, especially during the first week or so while they take you through onboarding and training etc. For your new day job you need to get yourself through the first 3 - 6 months and pass the probation process.
Depending on your situation of course - best course of action is probably to sharpen your time management strategies and see if you can push some of the part time deadlines and the bulk of the work to mornings / evenings / weekends or whenever outside of your day job hours.
Remember as well to leave some slack in the system - 1 + 1 is not 2 (or 1 + .3/.7 will be about 2.1)
The other angle here is whether you can transition your part time job to a service offering, contracting arrangement or a side business. If you have three months and you've already got a "finger on the eject button" then this could be a good focus for you as it could ultimately reduce the level of friction between your jobs (i.e. You'll become your own client)
Remote Access
On to team viewer and remote access. Amazing. Broadly this sort of set up is ideal in your day job is ideal (behind work remote arrangements of course (or maybe not!)). This is definitely not something you can depend on - we're out of our depth technically, but you should assume that any activity in a workplace is logged, tracked and monitored and use of any remote access software will be strictly prohibited.
Sounds like you might be at an older, smaller company with less effective information security and cyber security protocols and policies (or sysadmin dgaf). On a side note this is probably a good factor to assess when selecting a job, however don't ask about it directly in the interview (i.e. "so how easy is it to commit fraud here?") and you'd need to weigh up how the in-office requirement will impact you.
Worse case scenario in your new day job you may get slapped with "productivity tracking" software as well.
Our advice here? Try and get your new day job to be remote if you can (and we do understand that this won't necessarily be widely available).
One thing that we've actually neglected to mention throughout the last 5000 words or so is a second laptop. In hindsight, glaringly obvious but let's cover it now.
Get a second laptop.
Even if you're working remote for all jobs / projects:
Get a second laptop.
Firstly it'll help minimise the risk of errors that could reveal your entrepreneurial activities. Ever accidentally screen shared something that you shouldn't have ? Or sent the wrong attachment or drafted and sent something from the wrong email address?
The risk is of this will increase as you get tired, and particularly also as you multi-task and context switch.
Secondly it'll help a little bit with putting some boundaries around your cognitive real estate and which work context you're currently in (i.e. Good rectangle / bad rectangle).
Finally - credit to Caiman here
(from memory there's a bit more detail in another tweet), but depending on the jurisdiction if there's company information on your personal (or second) laptop it can be seized by authorities.
The other consideration is around handling and securing confidential information from your day job. Realistically if you're caught working a second job you may be terminated (depending obviously) - but if they find issues around how company / client information was stored or mishandled then the severity of response will ratchet up. If you work in government this is crucial. You will be made an example of.
Get a second laptop.
You likely don't need anything expensive with massive processing power but spring for more RAM to help with multiple windows / applications if you can.
If you're working in office you'll need assess the second laptop situation. It may be feasible to simply bring it in and work off it (if asked, you can answer catch all "IT issues" or that you need specialist software). Obviously in some environments this will be strictly prohibited (infosec / cybersec etc.).
The blue tooth keyboard and phone combination we've never tried, but we're not entirely convinced that you'll be able to do solid work entirely off a phone screen (you may however! - and this is in fact an older WSP recommendation from memory).
If a second laptop at the office is out of the question then break the tasks down even further to components. Surely a few scrawled notes or ad copy adjustments and edits on a lined foolscap page would escape notice? Also see Lemming here for a good breakdown:
(and if you have the time see here for his raw and authentic 2022 (self) review)
Further questions or comments are welcomed in the comments below.
quick edit thanks to a reader who's clearly much better at proof reading than we are
it's r/ overemployed (and a website as well) not r/ overhired (now fixed)
These sites / resources may actually be worth a deep dive and assessment from us at a later date - if nothing else to see if we've covered off the main risks in our writing so far (the subreddit at a glance seems to have it's fair share of horror stories amongst the (amusing) shitposts.