In the race for AI, tech firms are asking for their staff to work long hours. But there are risks, experts say.

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”).

  • DomeGuy@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 day ago

    Some jobs need exempt employees because they run on call rotations and so forth,

    Being on call with highly flexible hours absolutely is not sufficient to make you federally exempt. There are only three things:

    1. You’re a bonna fide manager of the organization empowered to sets the schedule and can hire additional staff as needed.
    2. You work in a specifically exempted profession, regardless of schedule.
    3. Your non-overtime compensation puts you over a specific dollar amount threshold.

    And, as with most things, your state may have stricter rules. You may also have an employment agreement that grants overtime even if you would be otherwise exempt. But as with the rest of the minimum wage, the federal rule sets a floor that your employer can’t go under without risking you suing them for stolen wages.

    • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
      11·
      23 hours ago

      Not everyone lives where you do and labor laws are complex and varied. Which is why I didn’t go into specifics.

      Have fun with that pedantry though.

      • DomeGuy@lemmy.world
        21·
        21 hours ago

        If we ignore setting and presume an international audience, then it makes sense to also ignore the minimums in laws and reduce it to base principles. Which makes grind culture even worse.

        If you regularly work more than 40 hours a week you are being exploited. Regardless of your profession, wage, ownership stake, or what claims your local laws would let you pursue.

        This extends very nicely to monthly and annual labor statistics. 72 hour weeks for certain irregular situations like “bringing in the harvest” may not be exploitive, so long as the ratio of hours worked to hours elapsed drops beneath 24%. (5/7/3).

        • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          20 hours ago

          If you’re going to move the goalpost can you at least move it past my “dickhead employers are a dime a dozen…” initial statement?