Nothing Changed at Work

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Last week was the arithmetic. This week is what happens at the office, which turns out to be less than people expect and different from what they fear.

The question I am asked most often is some version of: what happens when they find out. It arrives with real anxiety attached, and underneath it sits a target I would move. Not an arrangement nobody notices. An arrangement you could describe out loud to your employer without it being a problem.

In the two cases I can document, the work was kept separate from the employer. No current-company contacts, no employer customers, no live vendors, and none of it on the employer's time or equipment. Separate is not the same as secret, and only one of those holds up if you are ever asked.

Wayne V. is a Finance Manager. Before any of this started, he had closed the same board-reporting gap three times inside his own company. Each time he did it without billing for it separately, because inside the building it was simply part of the job.

He now earns $4,500 a month doing that work for companies that are not his employer. There was no announcement. There is no website. His title is the same as it was.

Not financial advice. Example only. Your results will vary.

The fear is almost always framed as a risk to the job. What people describe once they have been doing it a while is closer to the opposite.

Consider the asymmetry. An employee who needs the job behaves differently from an employee who has chosen it. The one who needs it manages upward carefully, volunteers to stay visible, and thinks twice before disagreeing in the meeting where it would matter.

The one who has an option does less of that. From outside it tends to read as steadiness rather than as detachment.

That is the part nobody mentions. Having somewhere else to be can make a person better at the job they are in, because the fear that was quietly distorting their judgment is no longer sitting in the room with them.

Three things change. One thing does not.

1. Disagreement can get easier. Not into confrontation. Into the ordinary professional act of saying the thing you actually think, at the time it is useful, rather than a week later to someone who cannot act on it. The pattern I have seen is that people with an option do less pre-editing for safety, and the advice they give gets more honest. I would not promise you that. I would say it is the most common version.

2. What you say yes to can change. Some senior calendars hold more visibility work than anyone admits, taken on because being seen is how you stay safe. In the cases I have watched, once being seen stopped being load-bearing, some of that fell away and what remained was closer to the actual job.

3. A bad quarter can land differently. A reorganisation is a different event when it arrives as a problem rather than a catastrophe. In the conversations I have had, the reading tends to be more accurate the second way. Fear is a poor analyst.

4. In the two documented cases, the visible markers held. Wayne V. has the same title he had before. Ian O. stayed in his role for the entire fourteen months it took to close his gap. Neither made a public announcement and neither built a website. That is what the record supports. What your own reviews, responsibilities or standing would do is a question only your situation can answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing on your behalf.

Not financial advice. Example only. Your results will vary.

There is one line that keeps all of this clean, and it is not optional. I am not a lawyer and none of this is legal advice. Agreements and company policies vary, so read yours, and if the boundary is unclear after that, ask someone qualified rather than guessing.

The conservative default is former colleagues, former clients and former vendors. Treat anyone at your current employer, your employer's customers, and its live vendors as off-limits unless you have explicit written approval and have confirmed it does not cut across your obligations.

This is not a matter of taste. That kind of overlap can create a serious conflict or a contractual problem, depending on the employer, the agreement, the industry and the facts. What you want is an arrangement you could set against your agreement, your company policy and your confidentiality obligations, and be comfortable with the answer.

The good news is that the permitted list is almost always the better list anyway. A former colleague who has moved to a smaller company already knows how you work and no longer has a reason to keep you to themselves. That is the warmest introduction available to you, and it is also the one with no exposure attached.

Read whatever you signed, and read your company policy alongside it. If the boundary is still unclear after that, it is a question for an employment lawyer. That is a twenty-minute job and it removes the question permanently.

What makes Wayne V.'s case useful is that the outside work and the inside work are the same work.

He had already solved the board-reporting problem three times at his own company. He knew how long it took, where it broke, and what it was worth to have fixed. None of that was theory he had to go and acquire.

The only thing standing between the internal version and the paid version was a sentence describing it to someone who did not already employ him.

He is still employed. There was no announcement and there is no website. $4,500 a month, from work he had already done three times for free.

That is the part worth copying. Before you think about what you could sell, look at what you have already solved more than once inside your own company without billing for it. That list is usually short, specific, and completely invisible to the person who made it.

Not financial advice. Example only. Your results will vary.

Fifteen minutes, and you write down three names.

Former colleagues, former clients, former vendors. People who have seen your work and no longer sit inside your company. Not current contacts, for the reason above. Do not message them. Just find out whether the list exists, because most people assume theirs is empty and most people are wrong about that.

Three times he closed the same board-reporting gap inside his own company without billing separately, because inside the building it was part of the job. The fourth time, it was for someone else, and it was not. Not financial advice. Example only. Your results will vary.

A book about what happens when you stop treating every request as a requirement. The argument is that the ability to decline is what makes the remaining work any good, and that most careers quietly run on the opposite assumption. I am recommending it this week because declining things is the first visible symptom of what this issue is about, and because the book is honest that the hard part is not knowing what to cut.

I can usually tell when someone has crossed over, and it is never because they tell me.

It shows up in how they describe their job. Early on, people describe the role the way it reads on an org chart. Later, once there is something running alongside it, they start describing it the way you would describe a client. Still serious about it. Less fused with it.

I do not think that is detachment. I think it is the first time in twenty years they have been able to look at the job from somewhere other than inside it, and seeing a thing clearly usually requires standing somewhere else.

P.S. If your job stopped being the only option at some point, I would like to know what tipped it. Not the money. The moment you noticed.

Most of the people this is written for do not know it exists. They are not searching for it, because they do not have a word yet for the thing they are looking for.

If someone came to mind while you were reading this issue, forward it to them. That is the whole mechanism.

There is a referral program attached if you want it. One referral gets you an sixteen-page workbook on building a tangible asset you are already qualified to create. Three gets the Projects Playbook plus your pick of an AI Survival Guide. Five gets a written audit that I read and return myself.

A few things I've built, if any of them are useful this week.

No pressure on any of it. Take what's useful, skip the rest.

Scott Fulbright

This newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Any figures, projections, or outcomes mentioned are examples based on individual circumstances, not guarantees, your results will vary. Consult a qualified financial advisor before making retirement or income decisions.

This issue also discusses employment agreements, company policies and conflicts of interest. It is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. Employment agreements, company policies and applicable law vary. Consult a qualified employment attorney about your specific situation.

Affiliate disclosure: Encore Income Insider may include affiliate links, including Amazon Associates, in book or resource recommendations such as This Week's Reading. If you purchase through one of these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.