Here’s How ‘Overemployed’ People Get Away With Working Multiple Full-Time Jobs

If you’re struggling to get everything done in a standard 9-to-5 gig, you might think it sounds utterly impossible to work two — much less three or four — full-time jobs. But some people are taking advantage of the flexibility of the current employment market and are earning several salaries all at once … without their respective bosses knowing anything about it.

Moving on up

Low-income workers have often been forced to take on multiple jobs just to make ends meet, but a new crop of so-called “overemployed” workers are living quite comfortably or even getting rich by holding down two or more high-wage positions.

Some of the craftier employees say (not very loud, of course) that they’re really not working much more than 40 hours per week in all.

So how do they keep it under wraps? Well, this growing community has developed a way to discuss new strategies online without cluing everybody else in.

The OE dictionary

There’s one common forum where these people can share tips and ask for advice. It’s the subreddit appropriately called r/overemployed. But before you start browsing the threads, it’s important to get a grasp on some of the terms you’ll encounter.

One of the most common is OE, which, as you might have guessed, means “overemployed” and refers to anyone who is working two or more jobs. Here are a few others:

• J1 (and beyond): Your highest priority job is labeled “J1” and each subsequent one, in order of decreasing importance, is called “J2,” “J3,” etc.
• HPW: This acronym stands for “hours per week” and refers to how much time workers spend on a particular job.
• Lifestyle creep: Many overemployed workers become accustomed to the extra money, and this term refers to their realization that they can’t go back to one measly job.

Chris Agee November 16th, 2023

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