Mark C · pull lines
Where it pulls: side work and the main job
When a dart is sewn too deep, the fabric around it puckers. Faint diagonal lines appear, running from the point of the dart toward the nearest seam. Dressmakers call them drag or pull lines, and they show where a change in one place is taking tension from somewhere else.
Side work can leave the same marks on a week. The obvious place to look is the main job: the one that usually pays the rent, carries a contract and takes up the largest single piece of the week. Researchers have studied that relationship under the name multiple jobholding, and the findings point in more than one direction.
What the studies describe
A 2020 review in the Journal of Management by Emily Campion, Brianna Caza and Sherry Moss brought together research on people who hold more than one job. They found a literature spread across economics, sociology and psychology, with different definitions and methods, and grouped the reported effects into costs and benefits. On the cost side: longer total hours, time pressure, fatigue and conflict between roles. On the benefit side: extra income, skill development, a sense of identity outside the main job, and a buffer against losing any single source of work.
A more focused study by Hudson Sessions, Jennifer Nahrgang, Manuel Vaulont, Raseana Williams and Amy Bartels, published in the Academy of Management Journal in 2021, followed employees who also ran side work. Using repeated surveys over time, along with ratings from supervisors, they reported that days of side work that felt meaningful and self-directed were linked with a sense of empowerment that carried over into the main job. The same study also found a cost: side work took energy, and on some days that depletion showed up at the main job too. The authors described both paths running at once.
These are average patterns in particular samples. They do not show whether side work would help or strain any specific job or any specific person.
Where the evidence is thin
Most of the psychological research comes from the United States and Western Europe and from people already doing side work, which means those who tried it and stopped are underrepresented. Diary studies typically last days or weeks, not years. The review by Campion and colleagues notes that the field lacks agreed definitions: some studies count a weekend shift in a second employer's shop, others count freelance projects or online selling, and these may affect a week very differently. Many of the outcomes are self-reported.
Pull lines that are not psychological
Some of the strongest pulls are written down rather than felt. Employment contracts in many countries can include exclusivity clauses, conflict-of-interest rules, confidentiality obligations or restrictions on using an employer's equipment and time. Some public-sector and regulated professions have specific rules about outside work. Platforms have their own terms, and tax authorities may treat side income differently from a salary.
These vary by country, sector and contract, and Dartfold does not interpret them. The usual sources are the employment contract itself, the employer's written policies, and a qualified lawyer or accountant where the person works.
Looking for the lines
A dressmaker checks for pull lines by putting the garment on and looking in a mirror, not by rereading the pattern. The research on side work suggests a similar habit: noticing, after a few weeks, where the tension actually shows. It may be at the main job, in sleep, in time with other people or nowhere obvious at all. The pattern is a plan; the fitting is where it becomes clear whether it holds.
- Campion, E. D., Caza, B. B., & Moss, S. E. (2020). Multiple jobholding: An integrative systematic review and future research agenda. Journal of Management, 46(1), 165–191.
- Sessions, H., Nahrgang, J. D., Vaulont, M. J., Williams, R., & Bartels, A. L. (2021). Do the hustle! Empowerment from side-hustles and its effects on full-time work performance. Academy of Management Journal, 64(1), 235–264.