That kind of thing can have significant repercussions to other people’s jobs and the overall health of the business. I think that’s an ethical breach worth mentioning. In the case of grad students unions have provided resources (legal and financial) to support their position. Outside of retail, I’ve never had to accrue my time off. Agreed. The only thing unions have is how to keep the dues paying employee on the job and the union contract in place. However, there are very important legal differences between the two, going way beyond job title. I am a little appalled at commenters I generally enjoy being so adamant about burning this guy’s life down. Privacy Policy and Affiliate Disclosures. Wow. Trying to somehow link this situation with sexual predation? All we know is that he had two full-time jobs and a difficult to believe (but still possibly true) story about a really awful family medical situation. Totally agree with Temperance and Captain S. Sounds like both employers got their work done. Also, I’m noticing all the hemming and hawing and “I don’t know what to do” when you had the conversation about him quitting. Don’t let this guy poison your work life. You’re not the first person it’s happened to, and you won’t be the last. I don’t know if it really changes anything in how it should be handled, but it does make me wonder whether this was a pure scam or just a bad plan that went predictably awry. (We could give a very wide benefit of doubt and say that maybe the wife really was sick, new job had better health coverage, couldn’t have a gap….who knows. If there’s nothing about second jobs stated in it, your employer can’t prevent you from taking another job. Decompressing/downtime I’m not saying he deserves the benefit of the doubt. The OP’s company can’t give in to the satisfaction of screwing him right back. In my experience, people willing to or even interested in sales jobs are not often lacking for job opportunities. Pretty sure he can delete recommendations on his LinkedIn. Probably fed them the same sob story too, that is, if he’s still there. I mean, what kind of bad decisions will he make the next time he has some sort of personal/family/financial crisis? If you disagree, that’s 100% valid, but using rhetoric to diminish a viewpoint is a bad look. A reputation doesn’t stay secretly within a single company. Poppycock. Suddenly I’m wondering if my former useless coworker was working a second job and just seeing how long we’d keep him. It was that simple. How exactly did he get his? I’m now a firm believer in the “cheaters never prosper” mantra. We don’t know if he lied out of need or out of compulsion or out of maliciousness, we just know that he lied–OP should inform the other employer of that fact without speculating on the circumstances and let it go. Where this arises, you should be in a good position to discipline or dismiss the employee on the basis that the employee has been dishonest about the state of his or her health. Maybe he thought he could make both work and in the moment agreed to what was clearly an unrealistic expectation. Uh, that’s not what I was going for at all, but okay – I just don’t follow the specific train of thought that unions are actively keeping existing labor laws on the books. My company doesn’t have this policy, but does sate in the outside employment section that if in a performance review it comes out your performance is suffering due to a second job, they will ask you to quit the second job in order to correct performance here. In my experience, even the most brazen liars/cheaters NEVER come right out and say “Yup, I totally made up a sick wife and got away with 2 months of pay from you, and you can’t do anything about it now! He was defrauding one employer, so it’s not unlikely that he would defraud the other. I’ve had to work two jobs before while my husband was sick and I was caring for him. Why is SAT so important in theoretical computer science? That saying “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” applies here, just replace stupidity with desperation. Do you think the competitor was wrong to inform Snark’s employer? Honest question – do you really think he’d gloat? He could have chosen to work one job, like a sane, rational, ethical human being. If he can dig his own grave without screwing anybody else, fair enough, but nobody wants to see collateral damage. Unless you think a person can work 2 full time jobs in 8-10 hours, Owler is 100% correct. But I’d go out of my way to ruin his reputation. Yes it sucks, but trying to get revenge isn’t worth it. No. I can’t imagine many people trying to pull this off with the assumption they were going to get this accommodating of a boss. Any legal implications here? The union has very specific rules about if and how you can fire someone that makes it really hard to do, especially as this employee in particular always walks right to the line or being fireable per union and then when he gets notified, walks it back. No, but it’s close enough to justify factually telling the employer what you know (that he started for you on date X, you weren’t aware that he had another job, he told you about the sick wife, for which you gave him time off, etc.). Why all the vitriol towards this employee when there’s no real evidence that he wasn’t working in good faith? He may also be defrauding the other company, and I would loop them in on your experience. What specific political traits classify a political leader as a fascist? 1) Some employers don't want you to have a part-time 2nd job. It’s questionable whether you have a legal right to recoup any of this person’s salary at all, it’s 100% certain that you’re not going to get some kind of PITA fee. I imagine those who cheat and have whole second families feel a similar level of high-level stress that I did from keeping up that lie. I hate the US employer-provides-insurance system as much as anybody, but the fact the system sucks and he needs the job for his wife’s healthcare *does not* give him an automatic pass on being a liar, bad employee, and pretty awful person. There were some notable decisions in 2004 & 2016 from NLRB regarding grad student unionization. He’d find another job and he’d get a second chance. I heard rumors that he was threatening to sue based on racial discrimination, but the company was able to prove what he was doing and he dropped that threat really fast. Now, having the place you burned horribly – and everyone who was working with you at the time, especially your manager – remember you and not hire you again if you apply with them later? In fact, we have no idea what the work hours are for this other job – or even if it’s full-time! In other industries competitors and other businesses in the space don’t have that relationship. And sometimes lawyers can get results with pretty low-investment approaches, like just sending a letter. We’ve since changed our practices. Whatever happened to the concept of people taking responsibility for their actions? I would put him on your Do Not Hire Ever List and (because I’m felling petty today) I would consider even contacting him and letting him know “Hey I found this out. Some companies will go so far as to put this in your employment contract even and it can be pretty onerous in some cases I have seen about limiting what you can and cannot do. I meant “It is the “preponderance of evidence”. He was a hired employee who was salaried so it doesn’t matter how many hours you work, the employer was legally required to pay him. No. I feel like questioning what the guy “deserves” is not helpful or relevant. Mike C.: I agree with you that it’s far too extreme to say that he doesn’t deserve to work at all, ever again. If you meet someone at Other Employer at a networking function and his name comes up, sure, mention it. That said, I know there are a lot of industries and places that do the accrual thing. But something about people who create elaborate scams involving themselves or others being sick/dying just sends off all my rage airplanes into the sky. Like I said, it might be petty. He collected salaries from both companies and solicited business for the other company while at our company (when his job was to solicit business for our company!). Beds are tough to get, and the second admission we had to wait three days after a half hearted suicide attempt for a bed to open up. The big issue from a legal perspective is whether grad students qualify for existing worker protection. The correlation between those two things is probably very high, but not quite 100%.) Yes – I totally understand that and it makes sense there. More just musing on the situation since it’s so crazy. I agree there have been extremes, but I think the facts are pretty clear. I don’t think prospective employees will hold it against them if they warm their employer or that person’s possible fraud. Frankly, even if we assume that she does really exist, it still doesn’t make a difference as far as I’m concerned. Is it possible this guy was holding down two AND caring his kids/sick wife? When I had to be online for that meeting, I would take my lunch hour at my in-person job and eat while Skyping into the meeting. Right. She was not able to watch their two kids on her own in case something were to happen to her. The comparison IS “these are two situations where someone is engaging in unethical behavior and another person is being pressured to do/say nothing about it because it might “ruin the reputation” of the person behaving unethically”. If they’d asked for a transcript at the start, I’d have found a way to casually cancel my request for remote work, explaining that, on second thought, I’d be able to manage the on-site schedule after all. Why? The Right-to Work law applies to employees that work for an employer that has a union contract with a union. As much as a jerk this guy was, OP, you sound like an amazing boss that someone should be thankful to work for. There was no sick wife. Generally, you pay taxes based on where you work or earn income. Plus, we don’t know that this guy is lying. But do I think a mild head’s up is in order? Money: That's still the biggest reason people take on extra work. Even if the situation was completely innocuous, but just gave the APPEARANCE of dishonest/unethical behavior, it shows that he has such incredibly bad judgment that I think most managers/business owners would really appreciate someone letting them know if for no other reason that this incident happened while he was under their employee. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. By which I learned that if a bigwig takes a dislike to you, no matter how petty or irrational, they will use ANY excuse to get rid of you. This wasn’t something minor – this employee took serious advantage of the company, and I wish they could get their wages back. Take the loss and move on. He quit, so I think both of those ships have sailed. How can I provide power to a switch and outlet at the same time? Did you go after his other jobs? He may not have been trying to scam them but rather been trying to figure out a way to make them both work. Condemning him, or excusing him based on his story and our belief/disbelief is us playing a game to entertain ourselves. The other company deserves to know the facts of what happened with OP so they can make their own decision on how to handle it. What a garbage thing for someone to do. Even if you are only taking on a holiday job to help afford holiday activities, it can be draining on you. If I wanted to take a part-time landscaping job which would require me to flex my hours in the office, that would be a much bigger issue. If your second job competes with your first job or creates a conflict of interest, you likely don’t have a good claim. 3 months of pay is a lot to steal. So he resigns second job. I understand the temptation but I’m thinking of it a little like a breakup – move on with your life and you can probably safely assume this person’s garbage tendencies will show themselves wherever he ends up. I wouldn’t take any active steps regarding it with the other employer. So, do people think the entire medical issue thing was just a cover story and that the wife is fine (if she even exists)? If they fire him for it, then it’s not the OP getting them fired, it’s him getting fired due to his own behavior that makes him unworthy of trust. My husband is a manager at his job and has someone doing something similar, but they can’t fire him because of unions and he used intermittent FMLA to go to his other job. You can have two different jobs from the same employer; you can have two different jobs from different employers. You have no idea if he was lying, because you don’t know anything about the requirements of the other position. The company got burned by a bad employee … for 3 months. I love that movie!!! Not because this guy is owed anything, but because it’s not worth it to OP to expend that much effort on him. It is not fun to finish one job and then … We really don’t know, and in the absence of more evidence, it’s not in OP’s interest to try to chase this down. That may be part of why they don’t care. Losing your job for theft and dishonesty is a natural consequence of theft and dishonesty. Why waste anymore valuable time and energy on someone who’s no longer in your employ? Any type of sales role for that matter but I’m just surprised it was an SDR. employers. Most companies won’t let you work from home if you have kids there, based on the (entirely reasonable) assumption that you cannot work and look after kids simultaneously. Jesus fucking christ, let it go. It seems likely that he did but you just don’t know sure. Who cares about job #2? They suspect, but can’t prove, and HR isn’t interested in investigating. She arranged for a weeklong vacation at the same time that Job B began, figuring that she’d quit without notice after the PTO was spent. Plus, I’m not going to ruin *MY* professional reputation by covering up for a liar and a thief (let me make this clear- even if he is being totally honest about a sick wife, he handled the situation by telling many lies, and collecting paychecks under false pretenses) rather than protecting people & businesses in my industry. Sorry this happened to you and your company. If I was his new manager I sure as hades would want that information! Many reasons lead individuals to work two jobs, but one thing is clear. Leave it in the past and move forward with work. It’s worth talking to a pro, and you should DO NOTHING until you talk to a lawyer. If HR was willing to help on this issue, it would for sure be resolved just because they could prove fraud. I’m guessing you didn’t have an employment contract in place? And surprise surprise, he couldn’t do both at once. And I’m really not sure why “person tries to hold two full time, M-F, 9-5 jobs at the same time” sounds anything other than hinky & dishonest to you? Yes. This is probably getting off-topic, but compared to many other countries, the US’s wage and labor laws, especially things like paid sick time and family leave, are pitiful. It may be a good short-term solution to a financial problem, but it is likely not the best long-term solution. Right? It seems MUCH more likely that, like most people, he put in applications & went to interviews at multiple companies, and then took the first job offer that seemed suitable. I get that what he did was shady, but, he’s not working for OP any longer. And if you do this, you don’t deserve to work at all, because any sane employer would view you as a high risk for misappropriation of funds, time fraud, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and other unethical practices that can do immense damage to a business. I don’t see why the PTO matters. For comparison, they of over $950 is punishable by a year in jail in my state, and most reasonable people would think that a cashier stealing $100 from the till would be a huge deal. If he’s truly a horrible, fraudulent liar, he’s going to dig his own grave, anyway. I may be biased, but it sounds like something my first ex-husband would do. Even if the “sick wife” story is 100% true, the way this guy handled the situation was shady & dishonest and there is NO getting around that. We have no evidence that the employee took unearned PTO using false pretenses, though. Actually though, I would totally base my reaction on whether the wife was really ill or not, because *to me*, “did an unethical work thing in a desperate medical situation” vs “made up a complete lie about a sick family member” are extremely extremely different. LW, I think you should let HR at the other org know what Fergus did to your org. This is a perfect example of when such an action is warranted; if the LW were in the same situation, I would absolutely agree with making a call to the other company in order to potentially prevent additional risk/exposure. Exactly, if they were strangers to me I don’t think I’d do this. We had way more of an issue with the lying than the two jobs thing. Absolutely agreed. Now, that’s the bad news. It’s not the employer’s right to know what an employee does with his/her time off! Why not? 1. Thank you not only for being so brave and honest with us, but for not trying to gloss it over/make excuses, or let anybody else do so either. The fact that the OP called their company and verified the start date doesn’t mean the OP conveyed any information to them. Would not even blink if I heard it about them. Fair enough; following him around and crusading is off the table. OP, chalk this up to a bad hire and move on. It even said you could not take PTO in order to work at another paying job for the time you were being paid the PTO.