Photo Exposes Overworked Twitter Employee Sleeping on Office Floor: 'Pushing Round the Clock' Elon Musk's Twitter takeover has begun as employees describe working around the clock to meet deadlines.
By Emily Rella
Rumors have swirled over Elon Musk's Twitter takeover and how his acquisition of the company has subsequently impacted employees' work lives, with reports of 12-hour work days and no compensation for overtime pay.
Though some sources have chosen to remain anonymous, one Twitter employee is causing a stir on the social media platform after posting a photo of herself sleeping at the company's office — in a sleeping bag on the ground.
Esther Crawford, director of product management at Twitter's San Francisco HQ, was photographed (and then Tweeted by Evan Jones, product manager of Twitter Spaces) tucked into a sleeping bag alongside the caption, "When you need something from your boss at Elon twitter."
When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork https://t.co/UBGKYPilbD
— Esther Crawford (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022
Per Linkedin, Crawford has been at the company for just under two years while Jones has been there for one.
Crawford retweeted the photo herself, saying "When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork."
Musk's takeover of the company has not been seamless, including the ousting of several top execs and the looming threat of layoffs.
Crawford elaborated on the situation at hand in a lengthy thread after the photo received criticism from followers. She defended her work ethic, calling herself lucky to be able to work at such a pivotal time in tech history, and noted that sometimes this work requires sacrifice.
"I work with amazingly talented & ambitious people here at Twitter and this is not a normal moment in time. We are less than 1wk into a massive business & cultural transition," she wrote. "People are giving it their all across all functions: product, design, eng, legal, finance, marketing, etc … 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."
I love my family and I'm grateful they understand that there are times where I need to go into overdrive to grind and push in order to deliver. Building new things at Twitter's scale is very hard to do. I'm lucky to be doing this work alongside some of the best people in tech.
— Esther Crawford (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022
Musk, who has continued to be extremely active on the platform since his acquisition was finalized last week, has not responded nor reacted to either Jones' or Crawford's Tweets.
Twitter was down around 8.65% in a one-year period as of Wednesday morning, though the company will be delisted from the NYSE as of November 8 due to Musk taking the company private.
