WeWork's other toxicity problem: formaldehyde

WeWork successfully disrupted workplace safety standards.

The company that made waves by, among other things, hiring legendary hip-hop artist Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC to perform at a post-layoff party, is back in the news this week for yet another unsavory reason. Specifically, potentially up to 2,300 “phone booths” in its co-working spaces are contaminated with formaldehyde. 

Yikes. 

The company alerted customers to the news via email, which was helpfully shared on Twitter by Rachel Kaplowitz — the CEO of intranet company Honey. 

“We are taking a number of phone booths at your location out of service due to potentially elevated levels of formaldehyde caused by the manufacturer,” read the email. “After a member informed us of odor and eye irritation, WeWork performed an analysis, including having an outside consultant conduct a series of tests on sampling of phone booths.”

And, well, it turns out that 1,600 booths in U.S. and Canada “may be impacted.” Another 700 were pulled “out of an abundance of caution.”

We reached out to the email WeWork provided for anyone with “additional questions” regarding the toxic mess, but did not receive an immediate response. Which is a shame, because we’d love to know how long it took the company to conduct the tests after it first received the initial complaint. Oh, also, whether it received more than one. 

The irony here, of course, is that the death boxes, aka phone booths, are only necessary because of WeWork’s soul-crushing insistence on the benefits of open-office plans and shared workspaces. If people do get sick, maybe former CEO Adam Neumann can convince the company to hire Darryl McDaniels to sing at their hospital beds.