Twitter employee seen sleeping on office floor as Elon Musk pushes tight deadlines

People have been left divided over a photograph showing a Twitter employee sleeping on the office floor as a result of 'working around the clock to make deadlines'.

Granted, while many jobs advertise themselves as 9am-5pm, it's likely you will sometimes end up working longer than the allotted time.

Despite what Kim Kardashian said about how people should work harder, a lot of us already go above and beyond for our jobs - a four-day week having been trialled by over 30 companies in the UK earlier this year to try and strike a better work to life balance.

The debate around just how hard you should be expected to graft for your career has once again been sparked, after a picture went viral of Esther Crawford - Twitter's director of product management - catching a nap on the office floor, not long after Elon Musk took over the company, armed with a kitchen sink.

The original photograph was shared by one of Crawford's colleagues and shows the director of product management in a sleeping bag, eye mask secured, on the floor in-between some chairs and a desk.

"When you need something from your boss at Elon twitter," the post reads.

Crawford also re-tweeted the image herself. She wrote: "When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork."

The image follows reports of staff being ordered to work '84-hour weeks' or risk losing their jobs.

@evanstnlyjones/ Twitter

However, Crawford quickly followed up on the picture, defending Twitter and having to work 'round the clock'.

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 so it's important to me to show up for them & keep the team unblocked."

The director of product management justified the intense nature of the working at the company at present as not being a 'normal' reflection of Twitter and only happening because of it being week one of 'a massive business and cultural transition'.

Crawford stated how 'lucky' she is her colleagues understand when she needs to 'go into overdrive to grind and push in order to deliver' and how 'proud' she is of the company's 'strength and resilience'.

@esthercrawford/ Twitter

However, despite Crawford's praise of Twitter, many people have been left divided over just how hard it appears employees are being made to work.

One user argued: "I can’t tell if this is a tongue-in-cheek joke, or actually serious. Either way this is not normal or sane in a work environment."

"When you take pride in a glaring failure of management," another echoed.

A third said: "Appreciate the effort, but let's hope it's a special situation and not gonna be a recurring thing. Working hard is fine but sleeping at work seems a bit much."

A final resolved: "Depends on the context of the expectation to work like this. I'm for working like this for things you truly care about, but for making a living, no one should be expected to do this."