Recession Shines Spotlight on Moonlighting by Bob Goldman on Creators.com

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Recession Shines Spotlight on Moonlighting

If you think that working at your current job is a horror show, here's a provocative idea — why not make it a double feature?

The concept here is called "moonlighting," and if the name conjures up images of romance and roses, you've been loading up your Kindle with too many Daniel Steele novels. As a moonlighter you have one full-time job — your daylight gig — to which you add a second job, which you work "by moonlight."

Why would you take on a second job when your first job is sufficiently demeaning and miserable? Cutbacks and salary freezes are what motivated The New York Times reporter, Eilene Zimmerman, to tackle the subject in a recent Career Couch column.

The extra income a moonlighter can earn does come with extra stress and personal sacrifices, the reporter reports. "Ask yourself what tradeoff you are willing to make for that second income in terms of lost personal time, performance at your primary job and your stress level," suggests Eileen Blumenthal of Rocket Science Coaching and Consulting.

Of course, there is also stress when you move your family into a refrigerator box under the freeway. But, at least, you do not have to sacrifice valuable drinking time, or be forced to miss new episodes of "The Cougar," simply because you are working the graveyard shift at the local Arby's.

Maynard Brusman, of Working Resources, suggests that before you take on the extra responsibility of an extra job you "Re-evaluate your spending habits. Are there other options — can you take a roommate? Is your spouse working?" The idea is a fine one, but quite impractical. I asked my spouse if we could rent a room to a very talented young dancer from the Kit Kat Klub, a tight squeeze to be sure in our pied-a-terre, but no problem at all if the spouse took Brusman's advice and took a job, preferably with the U.S. Embassy in Uruguay. I won't tell you my spouse's response, but it is rather depressing how some people just refuse to think out of the box...or out of the country.]

"The best second jobs add to your professional skill set," consultant Blumenthal suggests, citing one of her clients working in the banking sector who "recently took a second job as a yoga teacher."

Personally, I wish more yoga teachers had taken jobs in the banking sector.

We might have avoided our current economic meltdown. Another possibility is that you use your primary skills to create a secondary profession that you can do on a part-time or freelance basis.

"Virtual call center work" is a suggestion from Nancy Fox of Fox Consulting, but your success in this endeavor would certainly depend on your ability to fake an Indian accent. Believe me, no one wants to get turned down for a home loan modification by a virtual bank employee in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you're going to be given the telephonic runaround, you want it to come from Bangalore.

Zimmerman lobs the question of whether your second job could pose ethical or legal conflicts to Gregory C. Keating, an employment lawyer. "If you do your own work on company time — and use their computers, paper, copy machines or phones for that work — you can be fired," posits the spoilsport attorney.

I don't have a law degree myself, though I never do miss a "Perry Mason" rerun. But it seems to me that your employer would certainly cut you some slack. Explain that right now you do almost no work on company time. The sight of you pounding away at a computer, loading sheaths of paper into the copier, and talking all day talking on the phone to someone other than your Facebook buddies would definitely improve morale at your current job. And what boss would object to that?

Whether or not you should tell your current employer about your new employer is a difficult question. "Although some managers can be very empathetic," writes Zimmerman, "others may question your commitment to the company or start looking for signs of fatigue."

I'd like to know where you find these empathetic bosses. If you had one, you'd be paid what you are worth, and wouldn't need to moonlight. You should resent any employer looking for commitment, since I know you are 100 percent committed to be 100 percent uncommitted. On the other hand, I'm sure you have no objection to your boss checking for signs of fatigue — just as long as it can be done without waking you up.

Bob Goldman has been an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company in the San Francisco Bay Area. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@funnybusiness.com. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.