Work conditions
HARARE - For most of the last nine years, Admire Munatsi has got to his boss’s farmhouse in Beatrice, 65km south of Harare, at dawn, to begin a range of tasks from cleaning the chicken run and pigsty to washing cars. By 7am, he joins his workmates in his oversized work suit and tattered gumboots to start a 10-hour shift as an irrigator at the farm. His combined monthly pay for both roles is US$70 (R1 270). But despite the poor wages and long working schedule, Munatsi considers himself lucky compared with many others across Zimbabwe who work similar daily routines.
NEW YORK - Twitter has laid off another 200 employees, including one of its most dedicated senior executives who boasted about sleeping in her office, before billionaire owner Elon Musk fired off what some interpreted as a bizarre goodbye tweet.
The latest round of redundancies began quietly on Saturday and represent about 10 per cent of the company’s remaining staff of roughly 2 000.
Among those who abruptly received a pink slip was Musk devotee Esther Crawford, who had been at the head of the team that launched the company’s subscription Blue Check programme several months ago.
The director of product management famously committed herself publicly to Musk’s Twitter 2.0 hardcore office culture when a picture of herself in a sleeping bag with a sleeping mask on in the office was shared widely in November, 2022.
On Sunday, before the dust from the significant round of firings had settled, Musk shot off a tweet that some are saying is a cryptic nod toward those who were fired, and those who weren’t.
‘‘Hope you have a good Sunday,’’ he wrote. ‘‘First day of the rest of your life.’’ In what could, again, easily double as an ominous nod to the terminated 200, Twitter user Richard Heart responded: ‘‘Except for those where today is their last.’’
The layoffs impacted the largest number of people at the company since Musk told employees during a meeting in late November that no more plans for staff reductions were being made, following a massive layoff earlier in the month.