Call me old-school but I don’t believe in side hustles, and in my opinion, staff who do it, 9never perform at high levels and are cheating their employers.
By side hustle, I do not mean hobbies, passive income, investments, volunteering or working separate jobs. My concern is employees who use the same 9 to 5 hours of their full time employer to do other personal client work, without an agreement to do so.
I don’t believe you can serve two masters or love both equally, one will suffer to raise the other up.
Last year, I tried to engage an agency for some campaign work and I kept getting employees of media agencies come in to make a pitch. Haba! Where did you tell your employer you were going to? The same business line? That’s conflict of interest and even if it is not, whose time are you using?
You cannot excel at both. You will be distracted and struggle to deliver on both. You will also damage your personal brand on both fronts.
You must not be an employee. You can be a freelancer and work for yourself, or come out openly and declare your business?
Please, resign and put your heart and soul in one hustle. That way it grows and earns you a decent living.
All this, while your management is toiling to make ends meet. Tomorrow it could very well be your own staff playing the same games and there you will be, whining and cursing.
I do support everyone working hard to earn a decent living, what I don’t support is deception.
Anyway, the future of work has arrived and will bring sanity to workplaces, all this rascally behaviour is already being shaped out. We will be all forced to be professionals and contract out our services. Under performance will be a thing of the past.
If you think your employer is clueless, while you use their time to pursue your side hustle, think again, the joke could very well be on you!
Thoughts?
©Adora Ikwuemesi
