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”).
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.
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).
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?