A solar-powered automatic drone charger is seen in the Zhangjiang artificial intelligence (AI) island in Shanghai on Tuesday. The Zhangjiang AI island, covering 100,000 square meters, is expected to be a cluster of AI companies, projects and talent with Microsoft and IBM as the two major participants, media reports said. The island will focus on high-technology sectors like big data, cloud computing and blockchain. Photo: IC

Screenshots of a conversation among Microsoft employees have gone viral on social media. 

The conversation seemingly involved team members complaining about colleagues who had previously worked for Huawei and Alibaba, claiming they had brought an overtime-heavy, rule-breaking and competitive work culture to Microsoft, media reported Monday.

The conversation was intended to be humorous, an employee of Microsoft Beijing told the Global Times Tuesday.

The employee said that the messages in the screenshots had been a test of Hackathone project made by interns, and were simply poking fun at "over-working" team members.

"Work-life balance has always been part of Microsoft's corporate culture and is respected by everyone, whether they have worked at other companies or not," the employee said.

After the screenshots were published online, several netizens claiming to be Microsoft employees posted comments asking their colleagues who had transferred from Huawei and Alibaba not to work overtime, and accusing them of bringing "vicious competition" to Microsoft. 

"You shouldn't harass coworkers outside of work hours," read one post.

The Microsoft Beijing employee said that overtime work is appropriate in isolated cases.

Chinese tech giants including Huawei and Alibaba were once under fire for their corporate cultures. Some were baffled by the tech world's "996" working hours - working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week - while others consented.