Silicon Valley is known for moving fast and breaking things, but Apple Inc. may want its employees to slow down in order to not break themselves or the company’s new $5 billion headquarters. According to documents and sources, Apple has run into a problem at Apple Park: Because so much of the interior is made from glass — the walls and doors, for example — people are walking into the panes, sometimes painfully.
The company famous for its innovative design experienced at least two incidents of men walking into glass and causing injuries serious enough to warrant calls for local emergency services in the early days of its new “spaceship” campus. Both resulted in minor cuts but did not appear to require hospitalization, the records showed.
While the issue might seem humorous, there are workplace regulations that Apple could be violating. California law requires that “employees shall be protected against the hazard of walking through glass by barriers or by conspicuous durable markings,” but the company has not been subject to citations, according to U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration data. If Apple was found to violate the law, it could be subjected to fines and other measures to ensure the company addressed the problem, according to a spokeswoman from the California Department of Industrial relations.
Apple Park was expected to open to employees in April 2017, but construction dragged on and employees only began to move in to the office around the beginning of this year, sources said. The company held its first event on the new campus to show off the 10th-anniversary iPhone in September, and needed a temporary occupancy permit for that event, where Chief Executive Tim Cook said employees would begin moving in later in the year.
