moonlighting

[cellio]

Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with my employment. If it did, I wouldn't be posting it for the world to see. :-)

Recently I was talking with someone about moonlighting, and the question came up: what exactly is wrong with moonlighting, anyway? In trying to sort out my answer to that question, I've concluded that it's "it depends".

One issue is conflict of interest. If you're the CTO of Google and you pick up a job as lead programmer for an up-and-coming search-engine company on the side, I'd argue that you have a problem there. At the other end of the spectrum, if you're working shifts at both McDonalds and K-Mart, or even if you're the CTO of Google and you're also working at a local restaurant, who cares?

But quite aside from that are the questions of the type of work and your own abilities. Specifically, if you have a job that requires some sort of creative energy (Google yes, McDonalds no), then you have to ask if the second job is drawing effort you "owe" to the first. I'm not saying an employer owns you 24x7, of course, but if you're, say, a salaried lead programmer, you're probably thinking about architecture, algorithms, and your particular problem domain at times other than when you're billing your time. That's a good thing; personally, I have some of my best ideas either in the shower or while driving in to work. (And sometimes Shabbat afternoon, but if I find work thoughts popping up then I try to banish them.) So if you're a full-time programmer with another gig on the side, do you have enough creative juice to go around so that you're giving them both the level of effort that you would have otherwise given the one? For some people the answer is yes and for some it's no; you have to know yourself here. (And in some ways you can benefit from re-use; yes for architecture and no for specific domains.)

If you are the sort of person who can manage that, then there's still the issue of appearances. Often appearance is more important than reality in the professional world; if your peers or employers think you're shortchanging them, it's going to be a whole lot of hassle to convince them otherwise. So you have to decide if it's worth it.

I've been couching this in terms of employment, but it can apply in other areas too. The consequences are less severe in a volunteer or low-pay millieu; if I sing in a congregational choir and play dance music once a week for the SCA and play blues every Saturday night in a club (to choose three things I'm not currently doing), it may be that I'm spending less time rehearsing any one sort of music than I would otherwise, but so long as I'm meeting the minimum obligations no one's going to argue that I should be kicked out. On the other hand, if it appears that I'm shorting the dance band because I'm hoping my blues career will take off, that could engender bad feelings even if it's not true.

So if being a lay leader at two different congregations (in two different movements) is moonlighting -- a question I haven't actually addressed -- then is that a problem? On the one hand, I'm serving both competently. On the other hand, it's two different liturgies and maybe I'd know one of them better if the other weren't distracting me. On the third hand, it's a volunteer activity and not a major time sink. On the fourth hand, one could argue the appearance of a conflict of interest because I'm trying to do the same sort of thing for two organizations that wouldn't normally cooperate in that way.

I don't think it's a problem or I wouldn't be doing it, but I am also mindful of the appearance. And that's why I wanted to know if my rabbi sees a problem with this.

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it's two different liturgies and maybe I'd know one of them better if the other weren't distracting me.

By two different liturgies are you pointing to the differences in Reform vs. Conservative liturgies or the fact that it's weekday shacharis vs. shabbos shacharis?

Because if it's the latter, that's not an issue. And frankly, I don't think the former is an issue because of the latter. (I am not, however, certain that made any sense).

You are doing weekay shacharis for a Conservative congregation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would not have the opportunity to do that same service with your Reform Congregation, correct? Therefore, I think it's a non-issue that there are differences in the Conservative vs. Reform liturgy. And it's good for you to be able to daven the weekday service in addition to the shabbos and yom tov service. That is building your skill set, not negating it.

[cellio]

I meant Reform versus Conservative, not weekday versus Shabbat. After all, learning weekday Reform liturgy would be ultimately beneficial to my own congregation anyway.

Some of the differences are in stuff that's common to all liturgy, like in the Amidah, or all shacharit, like p'sukei d'zimra. There's more potential for cognitive interference there than in the stuff that only appears in the Conservative weekday liturgy and not in any Reform liturgy I do (kaddish shalem, psalm for the day, the extra parts of yotzer, etc). I compensate for this by always working from the siddur (when leading) even though I've got the text memorized, so I have an extra prompt for the correct version. So far I haven't screwed that up, and I don't think I will.

You are doing weekay shacharis for a Conservative congregation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would not have the opportunity to do that same service with your Reform Congregation, correct?

Correct. We've actually talked about doing weekday shacharit, but we don't have critical mass.