Read a bit lower, and there are promises of perks galore: competitive compensation, free meals, free gym membership, free health and dental care and so on. But then comes the catch.

Each job ad contains a warning: “Please don’t join if you’re not excited about… working ~70 hrs/week in person with some of the most ambitious people in NYC.”

The website belongs to Rilla, a New York-based tech business which sells AI-based systems that allow employers to monitor sales representatives when they are out and about, interacting with clients.

The company has become something of a poster child for a fast-paced workplace culture known as 996, also sometimes referred to as hustle culture or grindcore.

In simple terms, it puts a premium on long working hours, typically 9am to 9pm, six days a week (hence “996”).

  • Dave@lemmy.nz
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    1 day ago

    Nothing says they have a successful AI product as much as needing your staff to work 70 hour weeks. Shouldn’t AI startups be advertising how their staff are so efficient they only work 10 hours a week but do their full performance?

    • Strider@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The irony is that yet a serious study has to state that those working hours even make sense productivity wise. Usually people get tired, burned out and make more mistakes…

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        No no. Not mistakes. I’ve worked jobs where the boss wanted 16 hours a day.

        I’d just not give a shit about quality. I worked at a hotel. Plenty of people got free rooms when I worked there. But I also made sure the important things got done.

        But were those free rooms a mistake? No. Far from it. They were an intentional middle finger to the millionaire owner who looked down at everyone else.

        Then he tried screwing me out of hours I worked. This after working there for 6 years. So I when I asked about it, he was adament that he wasn’t going to pay that money.

        So I opened a voice recorder on my phone, and had that same exact conversation again.

        I made sure to mention that I already worked those hours, but hadn’t been paid. To which he said he would never pay for those hours.

        That’s when I walked to my locker, cleared it out, and left. Then I called the IRS and sent them the file.

        Within 2 years the city took his land, demolished his hotel, and now it’s an empty field.

        What’s even worse for him is that this happened in 2018. Right now, the Cleveland Browns are in the process of buying land to build a new stadium in Brookpark (suburb of Cleveland). If he had still owned the land, the Browns would have had to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He could have sold EASILY for 20 million. He only bought the hotel for 1 million (which is pennies on the dollar for what hotels are worth).

        He bought it for around 1 million, and in the 3 years he owned it, only made about 600k on the property.

        Which means instead of selling in 2025 for 20 million minimum, plus the business of the hotel from 2018-2025 he would have had by still running the hotel, he instead LOST 400k iN 2018 by having the government forcibly take his land.

        All in all, I figure I cost him 20-25 million dollars because he refused to pay something rediculously low like $600. All because I was tired, pissed off, and done with his penny pinching to make me work everyday doubles. That way he wouldn’t need to hire more people.

        • Strider@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Nice 😁

          I also know hotels pretty good from the inside at the Mediterranean well that’s a very special trade I do not want to participate in haha.

    • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      These positions are also typically salaried so they can claim they don’t need to pay OT.