Career polygamy is the practice of holding multiple full time jobs at the same time. With the onset of the pandemic, many work from home employees took advantage and worked multiple jobs at the same time. Is it worth it? It absolutely is not. The potential damage to reputation is too large.
First, I am ALL for the employee’s side. As an employee myself, I know exactly just how much companies take advantage of employees and overwork them. If the employee can’t handle it? Onto the next one. That’s the Corporate America model causing much mental anxiety and stress.
So when I saw the trend of employees holding multiple jobs, I was intrigued. If you can work two $80k jobs and make $160k by the end with the same amount of hours, you doubled your pay. How great is that?! You can reach financial independence even faster.
However, the fun lasts for a while. Until the music stops. This isn’t a sustainable model because you don’t control the flow of work. The entire idea of career polygamy is to focus on one job and do it well but it’s OK if you get a mediocre score on the other job.
You’re not trying to make VP or Partner, all you’re looking for is an additional stream of income. No more and no less. However, it’s not if the new employer finds out, it’s a matter of when. People are going to find out sooner or later because you can’t hide some of those behaviors.
The long run consequences of overemployment is not worth the short term risk.
Career Polygamy: Pros
All is not lost. There are still positives to career polygamy, 3 of which are below. There’s a reason why it’s gaining in popularity, especially more so in recent times.
1) Build Wealth Faster Through Career Polygamy
Career polygamy almost doubles or triples your income, depending on the job and how well you manage it. It’s easier to build wealth and faster to build wealth when you have more money coming in. Income is the bedrock of building wealth.
When I was making $52.5k in my first job out of college, I felt miserable. It was insanely difficult to build wealth because my income was so low. After 401k and HSA contributions, I was living paycheck to paycheck. Although I have $300k in my retirement accounts now to show for it, it still wasn’t easy.
However, with career polygamy and having double paychecks coming in, imagine the possibilities! Imagine if you have a spouse who also has multiple employment. A married couple could potentially earn $400k, all-in and possibly even more!
When you can shorten the amount of time to reach financial independence, it’s a great benefit.
2) Increase Skillset Faster
Elon Musk famously said to work 80 hour workweeks to compete against the ones who only work 40 hours a week. You explode your skillset when you’re working double the hours. That’s what you get with career polygamy.
If you’re working in finance, finance in one industry may be different with finance in another industry.
Investment banking analysts are some of the most highly sought after job candidates because they’re so used to working so many hours. The amount of information they gain in one year is worth someone else who had 2 years of experience.
It’s an even added bonus if you get two different jobs at two different industries. One may be coding and the other may be finance. Then you really grow your skillset and increase your job market attractiveness to a potential employer.
40 hour work weeks is almost a part time job if you want to get ahead and change the world.
3) Income Diversification
The bear market of 2022 taught everyone just how fragile their jobs are. Then 2023 is when we paid the piper. When you depend on one income and one income only, it’s too close to 0. Many people couldn’t pay their basic bills once they got laid off.
Career polygamy provides that coveted income diversification that gives so much security and safety to employees. If one employer lays you off with a fat severance package? That’s awesome! You already have another job anyway.
There’s no need to go through another job application process because you already have another job. That’s the beauty of overemployment. Instead of going through the hard route of creating a side hustle, you already have multiple income streams coming in through your day job.
It’s much safer and more secure that way. 9-5 income is worth much more than a side hustle income, especially in the beginning early stages.
Career Polygamy: 9 Reasons It’s Not Worth It
So now that you know the benefits of career polygamy, here are 9 reasons why it’s NOT worth it. It was worth it in 2020 and 2021, when it was achievable. It is no longer achievable in 2023 and beyond. Below are the 9 reasons why over-employment is a bad career decision.
1) Damage to Reputation
It takes decades to build a reputation and a second to ruin it. When your employer finds out you’ve been using company resources to help their competitors or another company with their work, they are not going to be kind.
Here’s how Equifax found out and fired 24 of its employees for working multiple jobs. Companies treat employees like enemies in this situation. Changing jobs then becomes that much harder too because why would a prospective employer take a chance on an employee who’ve done wrong?
The reputation damage of career polygamy is not worth it because reputation is what you use as leverage to secure great opportunities. The really great companies look into your past to see what you’ve accomplished. Internet searches are increasingly becoming more common for background checks.
There’s no point in obscenely winning in one year if it’ll damage your prospects in subsequent years for the rest of your life.
2) Companies Don’t Like Career Polygamy
Companies will not take to kindly if they find out you’ve been using company resources to help another company. Such as using your time they bought for another company to help them with their goals. Companies don’t even like it when you start a side business to increase income.
Is career polygamy legal? Yes, in most circumstances. However, legality doesn’t mean practicality. In practical terms, companies will not take it easy on you. When another prospective employer calls your prior employer and they spill the beans on everything?
I’m not even sure if you have grounds to sue at that point. Whatever the case, it will be a mess to move forward in your career. Your life is a long term game over decades and decades, not a short term game. Companies hired you and is paying you money for a reason.
It’s to help further their interests to the best of your ability. It’s too much of a hassle to juggle multiple demands.
3) It’s Too Complicated
It’s complicated enough and exhausting to hold down one job. It’s infinitely harder to hold two full time jobs. My one and only full time job leaves me feeling exhausted when I come back from work. I can’t imagine how more exhausting it is to hold down two.
Career polygamy is too complicated and you’re doing it to entities who have billions of dollars of resources to find out if you’re doing so. It’s more complicated than cheating on your significant other. The goal is to earn more money working less complicated hours.
Not to earn more money by complicating your life.
There’s no reason to add to that stress because there’s other things to do with your time. Your mental health comes above all. The older I get, the more I value simplicity. Even if the complicated route would’ve been more beneficial to me.
There’s no reason to make life more complicated than it is already. Your mental capacity should be protected at all costs.
4) It’s Not a Good Long Term Strategy
The short term doesn’t really matter. What matters if your holistic life. Who cares if you made $250k one year if the next year, you make $100k? Or it causes your subsequent years to make $80k? When if you just kept up with your $125k job, you would’ve made more money?
Career polygamy is not a long term strategy but a short term strategy. Yes, you could get very lucky and have just one of the companies lay you off with a severance package. However, relying on luck is not a great strategy for your life. Self dependency is what allows you to move forwards and onwards.
When you win because of the choices you make and the environment you orchestrate, then everything works out. Your successes should be your undoing. Not the cause of anyone else’s choice. It feels much better that way.
When you get to the top on your own, everything just feels so much better.
5) It Could Violate Employment Contracts
While career polygamy is not illegal it could violate employment contracts and/or raise confidentiality issues. Knowing contract law is another whole beast that you don’t even want to get involved in, even if you are already a lawyer. Life is messy enough, why add fuel to the fire?
While employment contracts are slowly going away as companies prefer the at-will employment structure, that doesn’t mean that it’s nonexistent. When companies word the employment contracts to send to you to sign, they don’t add language that favors employees often.
It’ll add clauses that favor the company. I worked multiple part-time jobs before, which I knew was perfectly OK because there wasn’t a conflict. But it’s not as easy for multiple full-time jobs. Companies give you a living wage for full time work for a reason.
They want you focused and working hours to further their interests.
6) Companies Are Now Tracking Your Screens
While I highly dislike this practice, the work from home measure made companies paranoid that employees are winning too much. Therefore, they started tracking not just mouse movements but keyboard tracking as well.
Career polygamy is even harder now more so than ever before because tracking software and capabilities are so advanced now. Companies look for employees who hold multiple jobs and it’s not as hard to tell.
If you want to carry out over-employment the right way, you would have to invest so much money into the venture. Such as getting a new laptop, a new work station, possibly even a separate room. When you are too idle, companies will take note and there will be red flags.
Mouse jigglers only go so far. It’s only a matter of time before companies figure that part out, too.
7) Reward is Not Worth the Risk of Career Polygamy
It’s one thing if you get another six figure job to supplement your income. It’s not worth it if you get another $40k job to supplement your income. There’s better ways to make another $40k than going the career polygamy route. The reward isn’t there.
Your reputation is worth its weight in gold. The really good employers out there will not want someone with a messy reputation. The Google’s of the world pay top dollar for a competent employee AND a good reputation they can stand behind.
Some companies downright refuse to promote community college or non-ivy league graduates. If they pay an ivy graduate $200k versus another non-ivy league graduate $200k, why wouldn’t they pay the Ivy League graduate $200k?
Your reputation is everything in the business world. It’s how people perceives your value that matters the most.
8) Mental and Physical Stress
Interviews are NOT what it seems. Some companies promise and offer the moon during interviews to get you to join. Yet when the campaigns are done and it’s time for the real work, they bait and switch you. Career polygamy is difficult because gauging how the work place will be like is not easy.
Even the master gaugers make mistakes at times. The mental and physical stress that comes with working multiple jobs is insane. The amount of stress that one job causes you is more than enough. I can’t imagine 2 or even more.
Some tech employees made $800k working 3 jobs at big tech companies. However, when the economy turned sour and the music stopped, their world turned upside down. Stress levels increased because workloads increased. Things can change at the drop of a hat.
If your coworkers leave, you’ll be expected to pick up the slack. That’s not easy with two jobs and even harder with a family.
9) Work From Home Policy Changes Happen Suddenly
Companies started demanding employees to come back to the office in 2023. If they refused? They’ll just find another employee. Career polygamy became harder in the later stages of the pandemic because the power shifted. Layoffs became more frequent. Work dried up.
Employees no longer held the power. Companies no longer needed to offer a 50% pay increase to keep you because there wasn’t work. It wasn’t just a characteristic of one industry in particular. The downturn hit tech first then moved on to banking and onto other industries.
Small business and private employers quietly laid off employees as well. When companies have the power and dictate terms, they can do things like enforce a work from the office policy very quickly. Although I didn’t mind because I work in the office 5 days a week, anyway.
It wasn’t so true for other employees who worked from home 5 days a week. It was a big advantage I had because I didn’t have family obligations to tend to so I didn’t mind the commute.
Career Polygamy Could be Your Biggest Mistake
Career polygamy sounds good in theory and 2020 – 2021 will go down in the history books where workers doubled their pay with just one move, or adding an additional job. It’s a mistake that could cost you for the rest of your life.
Over-employment is one of the worst damages you can inflict upon your career because people’s memories are long. They span years and years. Your long term life is what matters, not your short term gains. I personally became intrigued with career polygamy.
However, I no longer wish to pursue any of it. There’s no point in making more money this way, because there’s other ways to do so. Although I’m always on the side of employees to make more money, get promoted, and achieve upward mobility, I’m not on their side on this one.
It’s not in the employee‘s best interest to pursue career polygamy. There’s nothing wrong with holding an additional part time job for the evenings and weekends. But there’s something wrong with holding multiple full time jobs during the workweek.
Companies are forgiving of a lot of mistakes, but they will not be easily forgiving of this one. Gaining employment is not as simple as one two three. Some fired employees took years before finding a job and even had to take pay cuts along the way.
Avoidable mistakes should be avoided. Your life is too valuable to make these mistakes.
Career Polygamy: 9 Reasons Why It’s Not Worth It Shortlist
- Damage to reputation
- Companies don’t like career polygamy
- It’s too complicated
- It’s not a good long term strategy
- It could violate employment contracts
- Companies are now tracking your screens
- Reward is not worth the risk of career polygamy
- Mental and physical stress
- Work from home policy changes happen suddenly
