As staff members struggle to achieve the strict deadlines set by new owner Elon Musk, a picture of a Twitter manager dozing off on the floor at the company’s offices was uploaded on the social media platform.
Esther Crawford, the director of product management at Twitter, was captured in the office’s fluorescent lighting, huddled in a sleeping bag between a table and some chairs in what appeared to be a conference room.
Product manager for Twitter Spaces Evan Jones tweeted at 2:16 a.m., “When you need anything from your boss at elon twitter.” Wednesday, ET.
When his staff is working nonstop to meet deadlines, Crawford retweeted the image with the hashtag “#SleepWhereYouWork.”
The image surfaced along with claims that Musk’s team is pressuring Twitter staff members hard to make his chosen platform improvements within a short time frame.
The aim is to practically labour nonstop to fulfil Musk’s deadline for a redesign of Twitter’s user verification procedure, according to an internal message acquired by Insider. The report said workers fear they could lose their jobs if they’re unable to complete the project by the end of the week.
When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork https://t.co/UBGKYPilbD
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022
As Tesla originally failed to fulfil its production goals, Musk became infamous for dozing off on the work floor.
Following some alarming comments on social media in response to the post, Crawford tweeted more frequently about the image.
“Since some people are losing their minds I’ll explain: doing hard things requires sacrifice (time, energy, etc),” Crawford said. “I have teammates around the world who are putting in the effort to bring something new to life so it’s important to me to show up for them & keep the team unblocked.”
“I work with amazingly talented & ambitious people here at Twitter and this is not a normal moment in time,” Crawford continued. “We are less than 1wk into a massive business & cultural transition. People are giving it their all across all functions: product, design, eng, legal, finance, marketing, etc.”
“We are #OneTeam and we use the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWork to show it, which is why I retweeted with #SleepWhereYouWork — a cheeky nod to fellow Tweeps. We’ve been in the midst of a crazy public acquisition for months but we keep going & I’m so proud of our strength & resilience,” she added.
Requests for comment from Twitter, Crawford, and Jones were not immediately fulfilled.
Users who thought sleeping on the office floor was excessive reacted angrily to the picture on Twitter.
TechCrunch editorial manager Walter Thompson responded, “A manager who loves you or your skills won’t force you #SleepWhereYouWork to keep your job.”
