Apple Employees Walking into Walls

Apple employees are reportedly walking into walls at the company’s fancy new glass office

Posted by Brian Heater (@bheater)

People in glass offices should probably watch where they’re going. Collisions have been one very clear downside of Apple’s $427 million spaceship office in Cupertino, according to a story out of Bloomberg.

The “people familiar with the incidents” won’t say how widespread a phenomenon all of this is, but there’s a definite potential downside to glass walls in a setting where occupants are regularly staring down at their phones. In an effort to combat the phenomenon, some have apparently taken to sticking Post-Its on potential hazard zones — a sort of primitive form of augmented reality.

As someone who regularly runs into stuff, I can personally confirm that walls, not people are to blame in this situation, and likely the whole things is more a source of brief personal embarrassment for those involved. As the story points out, none of the impacts have warranted a post to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Transparency, after all, is the key to addressing these issues.

This does, however, reflect a story from 2012, in which an 83-year-old woman filed suit against the company after injuring herself after bumping into a glass surface at an Apple Store. The suit, which was later settled out of court, claimed  the company “was negligent … in allowing a clear, see-through glass wall and/or door to exist without proper warning.”

Likely these reports, however, won’t result in a black eye for the company.