Huge multinational bank JPMorgan just unveiled their glittering new headquarters in New York City, and if you're looking for an office layout straight out of a dystopian movie, you're in luck!
The headquarters, which is housed in a brand new skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, has a rather unique layout inside.
On X, Dell Technologies Chairman and CEO Michael Dell shared an image of the $3 billion office with a note of congratulations, and it instantly got roasted.
Of course Dell would congratulate the design—it's likely all those gazillion monitors were made by his company.
But despite his and tons of other corporate leaders' enthusiasm, to any normal person this looks like one thing and one thing only: a corporate sweatshop.
Just row after row after row of computer monitors crammed next to each other so tightly it looks like there's probably a warden nearby who bloodies your knuckles if you so much as think of getting out of your seat.
Presumably, that's not the case: The new HQ also comes with amenities like a a gym, a "community hub," whatever that means, 24/7 food options and even a pub.
How exactly you access these amenities when you have to climb over all your coworkers and walk a 10K to even get out of the boiler room is anyone's guess.
@newspeakmedia Everyone please congratulate JP Morgan on their new corporate headquarters. And a special congratulations to the lucky employees that get to work at these desks.
Look at the way the one lone person in the photo is dwarfed by those rows and rows of monitors and desks. Doesn't seem like it would be worth the hike to go to the JPMorgan "community hub" to be honest!
And it's hard not to suspect that's part of the point, especially given the way corporations lined up to praise the design in their social media feeds.
There's really no way to interpret this design layout as anything other than an expectation of endless productivity at all costs, including each worker's well-being.
It's so on the nose for today's economic and working environment that it feels almost satirical, a perfect visualization of our era of wealth disparity, dystopian oligarchy, and absurd corporate expectations at the cost of workers' mental health.
And on X, people were feeling precisely that vibe: JPMorgan's new office layout quickly became a darkly comedic meme for all the wrong reasons.
Who knew the day would come when we'd long for the stultifying sameness of cubicles? At least you had some privacy and a divider or two between you and your annoying colleagues!
Anyway, JPMorgan's new gulag—sorry, headquarters—is housed in its new 60-story office building at 270 Park Avenue designed by architectural icon Norman Foster.
It's being billed as both an architectural and green engineering wonder, as an all-electric tower powered by hydroelectric technology, with a much smaller carbon footprint than most high-rise buildings.
