Never mind the glass ceiling, it’s the walls that are injuring workers at Apple’s new US$5bn HQ
At least three employees required emergency medical care in the first month at the futuristic building, after slamming into glass doors and walls
Employees in Apple Park, Apple’s grand new spaceship-style headquarters in California, keep walking into glass doors and walls.
Despite warnings from a building inspector that people would not be able to tell where the door ends and the wall begins, at least three Apple employees walked or ran into the ultra-transparent glass hard enough to require emergency medical treatment during the first month of occupation, according to recordings of 911 calls obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs once said: “There’s not a straight piece of glass on this building” and that this was “a shot at building the best office building in the world”.
Employees have reportedly been dealing with the problem since Apple Park first opened in a limited capacity last year. According to Bloomberg, distracted workers on their iPhones have been walking into glass walls around office spaces, resorting to sticking yellow sticky notes on the glass doors to help. The notes were reportedly removed, however, because they detracted from the building’s design.
Birds flying into large panes of glass is a fairly common hazard, but people doing the same in an office is not. In January, Apple’s vice-president of real estate and development, Dan Whisenhunt, reportedly acknowledged the problem to the Rotary Club of Cupertino. He said: “We’ve had people bump into the glass. That’s a problem we are working on right now.”
Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
