Featured Image Credit: evanstnlyjones/Twitter/REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Elon Musk, Twitter, Social Media, Viral
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Elon Musk, Twitter, Social Media, Viral
The internet has been sent into a spiral after a photo of a Twitter worker taking a kip at the office as a result of 'working around the clock to make deadlines' went viral.
During the social media giant's massive company-wide layoffs a few months back, Esther Crawford - Twitter's director of product management - controversially encouraged workers to sleep at the office, coining the hashtag '#SleepWhereYouWork'.
The divisive photo first circulated back in November of last year - not long after Elon Musk took over the company, armed with a kitchen sink. Check it out:
Advert
While, for many of us, overtime seems to be part and parcel of any job nowadays.
Whether it's clocking in a couple minutes early or leaving hours after the end of our shift - it's clear that lots of workers have experienced working beyond their allocated hours.
And this was definitely the case for Crawford, who has been very vocal on Twitter preaching values of so-called work ethic and working beyond one's paid hours.
The photo that re-opened the work-life balance debate, shared by one of Crawford's colleagues, showed the director of product management in a sleeping bag, eye mask and all, cosying up on the floor in-between some chairs and a desk.
It did not look comfy to say the least.
The original Tweet was captioned: "When you need something from your boss at Elon twitter."
Crawford herself even retweeted the post adding: "When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork."
The controversial post follows reports of Twitter staff being ordered to work '84-hour weeks' or else risk losing their jobs.
The series of tweets since went viral on social media, leaving many to debate amongst themselves.
Coming to her company's defence, Crawford was quick to explain the photo alongside the caption attached to it.
She wrote: "Since some people are losing their minds I'll explain: doing hard things requires sacrifice (time, energy, etc)."
"I have teammates around the world who are putting in the effort to bring something new to life," Crawford continued, "so it's important to me to show up for them & keep the team unblocked."
Crawford even went as far to call herself 'lucky' to be doing the long hours that she did.
However, it seems this was all vain as it has been announced that the dedicated staff member has not been exempt from Twitter's avalanche of layoffs and has now been laid off too.
Zoë Schiffer, managing editor of Platformer, announced the news last night (26 February).
She wrote: "Just got confirmation that Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments, is out."
The news has since sent Twitter into a total frenzy, with many pointing out the irony of the situation.
One Twitter user dubbed Crawford a 'Musk loyalist' who 'parroted' his talking points.
"Very surprising. Didn’t ever expect to see this, honestly," another wrote, clearly shocked by the news.
A third echoed a similar sentiment, writing: "This is very shocking to me. A whole hardcore Muskinist. Damn!"
UNILAD has reached out to Twitter for comment.