Overemployed

Next thing you know, I got offers from Tinder and Meta on top of my existing job at IBM. I said "Fuck it," and accepted both of them. My total compensation summed up to $824,950. LESGOOO. That's including salary + bonuses + RSUs.

Don't get too excited though. I ran into a few obstacles.

The first obstacle was the equipment. Lots of laptops. Multiple phones. Some people opted for hardware solutions like a KVM switch for a smoother experience. But I kept it simple. Just switching back and forth manually.

The multiple equipment thing ended up being more of a nuisance than a real obstacle. The first real obstacle came next.

I had overlapping meetings for multiple companies across various time zones. It was a mess.

I color-coded my calendar blocks for each company. I added five-minute buffers before and after every meeting. Makes life easier when having back-to-back meetings with alternating companies.

Recurring meetings cover the bulk of my calendar, but once they're set, I don't have to touch them again. It's different for one-off meetings. "hEy bRyBrEaD, LeT'S ScHeDuLe a qUiCk mEeTiNg". Fuck you. I have to manually input one-off meetings three times. One for each company calendar.

They never questioned my time blocks. They didn't care as long as I finished my work. When it was all said and done, I turned my meeting mess into a clean calendar where I could confidently go about my day. I'm Invincible! HAHAHA. haha. 🥲

Are you fucking kidding me? Meta wants us to come back to the office. It's only twice a week, but still.

Anyway, I start lugging my bag full of equipment to the Meta office, desperately fighting for meeting rooms. But shit's difficult to reserve. I often ended up using their public work areas, out in the open, hoping it wouldn't get too crowded with Meta employees. The anxiety was real. And I got busted once. Not so smooth.

Problems settled down when I figured out how to set up recurring room reservations. My problems were over! HAHAhaha.. ahh.

This one's not too bad. I was excited even. Meta wanted to fly me to their San Francisco office for a little bit. And Tinder wanted to fly me to Los Angeles for their 10-year celebration. I went to both.

Tinder was on Pacific Time (LA). IBM and Meta were Eastern Time (NYC). I was used to the routine—normal meetings during the day for IBM and Meta, followed by slightly later meetings for Tinder. But when I flew to California, that switched. California meetings happened during the day and New York meetings happened early morning. I was stressed. I simultaneously tried participating in meetings on my IBM phone while getting ready to head out to whatever event I flew in for.

Luckily, throughout the day I had enough breaks to have meetings with the other companies. I found myself reserving meeting rooms or going back and forth from my hotel to have video calls. I got in a bit of trouble for not mentioning I was in a different time zone but it worked out in the end.

I came into this experience with a 'severance mentality'. It didn't matter if I was able to perform. If I got fired, I still had my other jobs. And I would get extra money from the severance package.

But I changed my mind after a little bit. All these companies treated me well. On top of that, my coworkers were all passionate about their jobs and experts in their fields. It felt like if I didn't perform well enough, I would be affecting their actual lives and what they enjoyed doing. That was not ok for me.

I suspect there are better ways to make money. But if you are trying to increase your income, this is a simple and viable strategy. Just be aware of how strong you are mentally and how you might affect others. I had a taste of stress and anxiety that I was not prepared for.

So, am I still overemployed?

hehe :)