兼职能让本职工作更上一层楼？

    兼职一直是美国职场文化的一部分，虽然很多管理者都不鼓励这种生活方式。美国劳工统计局（Bureau of Labor Statistics）的数据显示，只有约5%的员工公开宣称打两份工。无论是出于法律责任、还是生产率考虑，一些公司有禁止超时工作的政策。一周总共168个小时，一些时间花在了第二份工作或自家业务上了，就没空为本职工作琢磨新想法了。

    但科技和工作方式的转变正在促使一些人重新思考这个问题。有些兼职可能还有益于你的本职工作，聪明的公司会接纳（而非打压）创业热情。

    谈到“第二份工作”，人们想到的往往是第一份工作忙了一天，下班后再坐车赶往第二处工作地，但风险投资家、考夫曼基金会（Kauffman Foundation）的资深专家保罗•科得罗斯基表示，如今“我根本不需要挪地方”。像Etsy（手工艺品在线销售市场）、eBay、Zazzle（兜售设计创意的网站）、Quirky（制成品的群测网站）等平台允许人们在自家的电脑上就可以进行创意工作。

    博客能有广告收入，有一技之长者能教授虚拟课程。从雇主角度，一个人坐在电脑前直到晚上两点和看电视看到晚上两点，没有什么本质区别——管理者可不能禁止员工在家看电视。这些被科得罗斯基称为“点滴创业”的兼职行为所引发的担忧不应超过业余爱好。确实，当代兼职往往涉及一些曾经的业余爱好。

    白天，马丁•考迪是一家医疗软件公司的销售副总裁。晚上（以及清晨和周末），他是Cellar Angels的总裁。Cellar Angels运用Groupon式模式，从小型酒厂获得葡萄酒会员折扣，同时为合作慈善机构提供捆绑捐赠。他和妻子在芝加哥还有一间葡萄酒零售店。由于考迪所在的时区比加州的合作酒厂早两个小时，下午5点到晚上7点他可以在Cellar Angels工作，不会影响到早上8点到下午5点的本职工作。虽然每周工作70-80个小时有些长，但他说，他们夫妻现在没有孩子，他们可以利用其它人带孩子去练足球的时间进行创业。而且他也不看体育频道，不看橄榄球比赛,他宁可花点时间想想葡萄酒。

    Moonlighting has always been part of American work culture, though it's not a lifestyle many managers have encouraged. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 5% of workers officially hold more than one job. Some organizations have policies against extra hours work, both for liability and productivity reasons. There are 168 hours in a week, and time you're spending at a second job or on your own side business is time you're not dreaming up new ideas for your employer.

    But changes in technology and the way people work are leading some to rethink this idea. Certain kinds of moonlighting may actually help you in your main job, and wise organizations can embrace, rather than squelch, entrepreneurial zeal.

    The key insight is that while the term "second job" conjures up an image of commuting to a second site after a long day at the first, these days "I don't have to move my atoms around," says Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. Platforms like Etsy (where people sell crafts), eBay (EBAY), Zazzle (where people hawk designs) or Quirky (a crowd-testing site for manufactured products) allow people to do creative work from their home computers.

    Bloggers can make money from ads and people with special expertise can teach virtual courses. There's no real difference from an employer's perspective between someone sitting in front of a computer until 2 a.m. and a television until 2 a.m. -- which managers have never been able to ban. These side businesses, which Kedrosky calls "fractional entrepreneurship," should be of "no more concern than having hobbies." Indeed, modern moonlighting often involves things that might once have been hobbies.

    By day, Martin Cody is a vice president of sales at a medical software company. By night (and early mornings and weekends), he's the president of a business called Cellar Angels, which uses a Groupon-type model to get members discounts on wines from small wineries while bundling donations for partner charities. He and his wife also own a retail wine store in Chicago. Because he's two hours ahead of his partner wineries in California, he can work on Cellar Angels from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. while preserving the hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. predominantly for his day job. While the combined 70 or 80-hour workweeks are long, he notes that he and his wife don't have children, so they can work on their side venture during the time that other people are carting kids to soccer practice. And plus, "I don't watch 'SportsCenter.' I don't watch football games," he says. He'd rather be thinking about wine.

    Some people even find that a second gig offers synergies with the first. Beth Henary Watson is the executive director of the Mineral Wells Area Chamber of Commerce in Texas. She and her husband recently bought a hair salon called All Star Clips in Weatherford, Texas. In her day job, she advises small businesses on problem solving and growing profits. Now that she owns a small business for the first time, her advice has real world experience behind it. One example: Watson knows that most of the All Star Clips clients are male. "Clearly that's who we should be trying to reach more of. I use this knowledge acquired first-hand to tell our chamber members that they should target, target, target, and ignore, politely, everyone else."