Musings on the Human Condition

I recently came across a post that highlights a disturbing trend. Some white-collar workers are working from home and holding down two full-time jobs without explicit consent from their employers.  As it turns out, I know someone who has had first-hand experience of this unethical practice with not one but two colleagues in recent weeks. In other words, it is real. Some unscrupulous defenders of this practice have suggested that this is a practice to be admired. They say that if you hire someone to build a shed at $100/hr for 20 hours ($2,000) and they complete it in 10 hours, you still owe them $2,000.  That may be true if you're being paid by the job. But a full-time job is precisely not that. When you're done with your assigned tasks, you're expected to look around and see how you can make yourself useful by mentoring and helping colleagues, picking up stories from the backlog, refactoring your own code, resolving technical debt, getting to know your team members, etc.