Investigation launched after IT employees allegedly work for Dallas and Austin simultaneously

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KC5SDY@reddit

My question would be exactly what function did they fill at both cities. IT in Dallas does have offshoots that have little to do with true IT work.

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medisamurai@reddit

no wonder its gonna take the GDP of a small island nation to refurbish city hall.

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AbueloOdin@reddit

If they were paid salary and did both jobs well enough, I see no issue.

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SignificantNoise5261@reddit

Two things with that:

there's usually a clause in your employment that requires you to get permission before obtaining a second job because it could interfere with your primary duties or create a conflict of interest.
if they let this go, they would have to admit that your job doesn't really require 40 hours of work a week and the follow-up question would be Why are we paying you for 40 when we're not getting 40 out of you?

It's always IT professionals that get caught doing this. They're not the only ones doing it, but they're always the ones getting caught.

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AbueloOdin@reddit

Those clauses are bullshit.
They aren't paying for 40 hours. They're paying for the job to get done. If they wanted to pay for 40 hours, they'd pay hourly.

Basically, if a company is allowed to have multiple clients and sell by the job, why am I not?

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doobymoogey@reddit

Saying it's bullshit means nothing if you signed and agreed to it

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AbueloOdin@reddit

What? Am I also supposed to run whether I have kids by them as well? Just in case it "may interfere with my primary duties"?

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It’s called contractual obligation, brother. If they have a contract requirement that says you must ask them before you have kids and you sign it, then yes, you can be fired for having kids without their permission.

They can’t kill your kids, but they are allowed to terminate the contract (your employment). Even worse, sometimes they do put penalties for defaulting on your contract that go beyond contract termination. If you sign it, you have agreed.

I’m sure you know all this but you’re acting like you don’t so here we are.

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Rhewin@reddit

Well, not entirely. A contract that violates a protected class is illegal to begin with. But in right to work states, they can just BS any other reason.

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hubristichumor@reddit

You can think it’s BS and still disregard it and accept the consequences, like these guys probably did. But If there really are jobs you can have without any conflict of interest and handle the responsibilities then I see no issue with it. A lot of issues with how employees are treated in the U.S. and I’d say holding down two jobs despite not going through the right protocol to alert your company is about the least morally bad thing you could do that’s against an actual line in a contract. Especially compared to what actual companies do that break rules all in the name of profit.

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SuccotashOther277@reddit

They want workers dependent on the employer, which gives the employer leverage.

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fakejacki@reddit

They should just be paid as consultants expected to complete xyz job not hourly employees.

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Rhewin@reddit

Most jobs I've worked don't have anything about getting a second job unless it's in the same industry and you could be sharing proprietary knowledge. For city governments, I don't see a conflict.

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DowntownSalt2758@reddit

Also, these two jobs are 200 miles apart. Unless both jobs are 100% remote, it is unlikely they are properly doing their jobs even if two jobs are allowed. They would likely be shifting at part their workload to other IT staff. I’d bet it was someone else in IT who blew that whistle

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-KaiTheGuy-@reddit

I work in IT.

Even tho my job is only 25-30 hours and I get paid for 40, you pay for the times that shit goes south and you need the IT people there to work 40+ or to resolve and respond to the issues.

And as for the employment clause, it shit when companies do this honestly. It's not any companies business what the person does. If they can work 2 jobs at the same time and perform both jobs to standards, leave the employee alone.

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qkilla1522@reddit

I generally agree with this in most scenarios. But in this specific issue with data security for 2 large cities there could be risks to citizens information etc.

I don’t care much if Twitter goes down because it’s hacked but if key city infrastructure is compromised that’s a higher stakes situation

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tx4468@reddit

How is this any different than doing instacart after your 9-5 is over? OR were they double dipping both jobs during the 9-5 hours?

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donttakemypugs@reddit

Both jobs require being on-call and working from 9-5.

It would be very easy to claim fraud here if the employees were chronically behind on work for either municipality. And if additional staff is hired to cover that workload.

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Speedtrucker@reddit

Civil service jobs usually have higher levels of conflict of interest and guidelines for PII.

So it isn’t that say a Dallas IT guy can’t go uber in the nights and weekends, often only being required to notify their supervisor or HR.

The issue here is that it’s 2 municipalities and doing the same job in both of them can present serious conflict of interest as they have access to potentially confidential and/or proprietary data in cities that are very much in competition with each other.

At the federal level it gets more severe because usually you’re also carrying a security clearance higher than public trust

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PrefersEarlGrey@reddit

You're agree to do a job, you do the job, you get paid. I fail to see why this is vilified? The work is being done.

Besides GOP reps are telling us to get a second or third job to deal with the rising cost of living.

So which one is it?

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