Weekly Bookmarks
95th Edition – November 29, 2020
Innovate, optimize, then jettison anything that gets in the way.”
The programming ideology of John Carmack as told by David Kushner
1. What Are Your Beliefs About Moonlighting?
If you are a part of a leadership team, you are probably against or have strong opinions about moonlighting. If you are not in a management position, you may believe you are entitled to do whatever you want during off-hours. Who is right?
Last week, I mentioned that I completed a $7,000 project on my own time early in my accounting and finance career. I failed to mention that I was still working 50-something hours per week. I also took about 3 days of vacation time to complete the project. No, I didn’t tell my bosses what I was doing. Why? They would not have allowed me to do the work. So I remained silent. Was I right or wrong?
2. My Second Foray as a Moonlighter
I loved data and technology early in my professional career. I once observed the buyers and CEO of our retail division pouring over reams of green bar reports that included dollar and unit sales by sku which was sorted by geography, vendor, and then product family.
By then, Office 95 was pretty much bulletproof, so I was able to obtain the spooled files from our IT team and then read the data using a utility called Monarch. I converted the green bar reporting data to a dBASE-readable DBF format. Thanks to Excel and ODBC, I could then create some robust reporting and analysis. The CEO and buyers loved it, and we used my methodology for about a year until moving to a more rational approach to sales analysis.
I took my enthusiasm to the road by creating a framework similar to the above that other small retailers could adopt. I knew I was on to something when our CEO at the time said, “I’d never want my competitors to see this.”
I made a few sales calls in my spare time which was limited. Using some of my PTO, I demonstrated my tools and analysis to about 100 retailers in Las Vegas. About half were interested. Now what?
This time, my idea was bigger than my brain and wallet. I shared my story with the Chairman of the Board who was once the boss of Bob Parsons (yeah, that Bob Parsons of GoDaddy). “Mark, no more moonlighting. He then wrote me a check for the expenses I incurred and gave back my expended PTO time in return for a promise to focus only on my job.” I think they kind of liked me. I accepted.
3. My Opinion on Moonlighting
Sometimes, moonlighting is a black-and-white issue. Sometimes it’s a grey area. It’s a non-issue when the CEO doesn’t care and even promotes it. If you work in a non-skilled position, it’s also a non-issue. I just want to focus on the black-and-white.
4. When Moonlighting Becomes Theft
I’m not the moonlight police. But there are times when all of us can be on the same page about this way of serving two masters. Consider the following scenario from these famous moonlighters:
- the software developers continued working their day jobs because no money was coming in for their games
- they borrowed computers from their employer nightly backing up cars to the office to load the machines
- the next morning, they’d come in early enough to bring the computers back
- they even were able to request new parts for the machines they borrowed nightly
- the developers were clear in that they didn’t want the employer to know what they were doing
The biographer of the two young programmers who created Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D games, and Doom states they rationalized their actions by stating they were merely borrowing the machines and doing the work on their own time and off-premises.
At the time, John Carmack and John Romero were working for a game developer who would later consider a lawsuit against his gifted employees.
Had you been the owner, what would you have done? What would you have done after learning about the incident to shield the company from other such occurrences?
5. A Few Tips Should you Decide to Moonlight
Are you in a management or leadership position and thinking about moonlighting? Or are you already moonlight? Here are some suggestions:
- be transparent – if you are afraid to be transparent, that may be telling you something about your side gig
- know your limits – never use company time or resources for your side gig
- be 100 percent committed to your team and the company – your peers are watching
- know your end game – if moonlighting is your next full-time business, set a date on the calendar
- be extremely careful about the potential conflict of interest even if the CEO says, “It’s okay.”
- make sure your relationships with family and friends are not suffering
There’s nothing wrong with outside interests. Some just pay better than others (e.g. a winery, a travel blog, photography, or even bartending). Just don’t forget your day job and give more than 100 percent.
A few weeks ago, I finished the book, Masters of Doom, and the moonlighting activities of John Carmack and John Romero caused me to reflect on my own experiences of moonlighting. The Chairman of the Board that I mentioned earlier shaped my beliefs on this form of dual servitude. “Mark, imagine driving down Morley Street and you see your Plant Manager who makes $60,000 annually (this was in the 1990s) driving a service van wrapped with a splashy company logo. I asked him to either be a plant manager or run his business on a full-time basis.”
He went on to say, “Mark, when you work for this company, we want you thinking about us while mowing, while running your 5ks, and while doing other things.”
If you knew this leader, you’d know he wasn’t being selfish. He saw something in a young, brash, but talented young man who was a keeper in a company that paid well and rewarded team members for great results.
Working for others is a two-way relationship based on trust, truth, and transparency. Should I ever become a CEO or President, I’ll adopt many of the Chairman’s ideas on moonlighting. For now, you need to develop your own convictions if not already.
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