Re: FWD: SONATA = Situation ON Allocating Time for Additionalities

[Barb Philbrick <caslonsvcs -at- IBM -dot- NET>]

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but some observations. 

As an employer, I no longer hire moonlighters except for short (2 to 3
week) assignments and I would be distinctly unenthused if one of my
full-time people took on an outside project. (I have had part-timers
take on outside projects, but that doesn't bother me as much.)

If I were your employer and you asked me for one day a week off to
pursue another opportunity, I would wonder how much longer you would
be with my company. It would be uncomfortable, to say the least. Plus,
if it takes you 40 hours per week with occasional overtime to complete
your work, how do you plan on completing it in 32 hours per week?
You'd have a rough time convincing me!

My experience with moonlighters is:

*The moonlighting job is last priority and usually done when the
worker is tired. Generally, the work is low quality ---- not because
the worker is bad, but because he or she is tired.

*No one can work more than 60 hours a week for more than a few weeks
and expect to be as productive as they are at 40. Somewhere, your work
will suffer. 10 to 20 hours a week for seven months is a lot of hours.

*Home life starts to suffer. When the worker looks at his or her
priorities, home life usually wins, and the moonlighting job usually
suffers.

Regards,

Barb

>OPPORTUNITY: Today I got a call from a man I used to work for who wants
my help on a project. It's something I did before as an employee at
his company, and he would pay a very good hourly rate for me to do it
again as a contractor. I would probably need to devote 10-20 hours a
week to the contract job for the next 7 months. It will require
occasional travel (2-5 days, maybe four times during the project).
>
>DILEMMA: I would like to do this, primarily for the money, but I don't want to harm the relationship
 I have with my current full-time employer. I could perhaps handle
this as a true *moonlight*, without ever telling my employer what's
going on except that I need to take time off for the out-of-town trips
(more than my vacation entitlement, which would be unpaid). But I'd
rather not do that. I have a family, etc.
>
>What I think I'd like to do is approach my employer for a temporary *partial leave of absence* --
 convince my manager that I can handle my documentation
responsibilities while taking a day off every week to work on the
contract project, in addition to the occasional trips.


Barbara Philbrick, Caslon Services Inc.
Technical Writing. caslonsvcs -at- ibm -dot- net
Cleveland, OH


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