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Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  bitches be bitchin.
• jsmith0295 10y ago
  "The running joke is Foxconn has nothing on Apple." Because joking about modern day slavery is so much better! Especially when they're your slaves.
  • freehunter 10y ago
    It's called gallows humor. It's a defense mechanism, a response to what one sees as a hopeless situation. Not saying it is or is not appropriate in this situation, but it's not much different than saying "I'd rather die than go to that meeting" or "this is hell" or "if I have to maintain that legacy codebase, just shoot me now".
    • Artistry121 10y ago
      In that case the jokes made at Apple could be in the same class.
      • pareidolia 10y ago
        That's certainly my impression. Some people use black humor more than others, I can't understand why some people need to thought-police it away. Black humor is a way of coping with life, and I wouldn't want to have it stripped from my culture.
  • exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
    You'd be surprised what people are willing to put up with, even when they're not literal slaves. Ben Farrell was just the tip of the iceberg. AAPL is just AMZN with better press and intra-organizational warfare that puts Ballmer-era MSFT to shame.
    • jessaustin 10y ago
      Great nick!
    • snarf 10y ago
      Doesn't this sort of stuff happen at every big company? Or is Apple in a different league?
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• chillacy 10y ago
  This stuff happens at almost every tech company. Seems like they're focusing on Apple to draw pageviews.
  • exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
    Apple's secrecy and critical darling hides a lot. There's a reason why Tony Fadell's Nest was so toxic when it was incorporated into Google.
  • huckyaus 10y ago
    Can you really blame them? The article is a net positive for the industry, and Mic has covered sexism issues at plenty of companies less prestigious than Apple. In any case, I feel that there's little to be gained by questioning their intentions.
• forthefuture 10y ago
  > Fed up, the woman quit her job at Apple, trading her position at one of the world's most iconic companies in favor of a job riding a bicycle. At least it has a happy ending.
• zepto 10y ago
  Seems very likely to be true, since it is part of the wider culture.
  • jsmith0295 10y ago
    I highly doubt people are frequently being promoted on the basis of gender at Apple. Whoever was quoted as saying they were didn't really provide any evidence other than people being selected directly for the job without it being opened for applications were men, and then used a bunch of buzzwords to make it sound more dramatic than that.
• sandworm101 10y ago
  >>> "But this rape joke was the final straw: The next day, Danielle escalated her complaint about the offense to the very top: Apple CEO Tim Cook." That isn't the route. In such a large organization, even a very very good and proper one, such issues are not to be accelerated to the CEO. If you have thousands, tens of thousands of employees, then complaints like this will and should be a daily issue (not always a rape joke, but similarly serious complaints). That's why you have HR and legal departments. And the next day? Workplace complaints take days or weeks to evaluate. Do not ever expect answers on the order of a day. In a really horrific situation you can ask your immediate supervisors for help, such as by transferring the alleged offenders elsewhere temporary, but do not ever expect heads to roll by next business day. The more serious the complaint, the more time one must expect before action is taken.
  • exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
    Maybe, but Apple CEOs have always given out their email addresses since the days of Steve. What is it for, if not for greater accountability?
    • sandworm101 10y ago
      It's there, but any rational person must realize that the CEO cannot possibly act faster than immediate supervisors. CEO will, at most, hand the immediate investigation to an underling who will then contact HR. And corporations have had employee manuals long before CEOs started maintaining a public email address.
    • michaelcampbell 10y ago
      PR. To appear to be accepting greater accountability. Do you honestly think Cook (et. al.) read their own email? I would be surprised if it's not filtered and triaged by at LEAST 3 levels of people before they see it.
  • ones_and_zeros 10y ago
    What? If you have a grievance HR or legal is the last place you should turn to as an employee. No matter what your position is it basically starts the process of getting yourself fired.
• redorb 10y ago
  Telling someone to smile feels closer to trying to cheer them up than any harassment.
  • poopsintub 10y ago
    I don't feel like most of that is substantial enough either. Passed up for a promotion is likely when the company is mostly men. Reporting bad jokes, nagging, and "smile" would result in hr pinning you as a problem employee even if they crossed the line, which the rape one obviously did. No one is going to tell you an employee was reprimanded, either way. Going to hr not to mention the Ceo seems more than a bit ticky tacky and outrageous. You're going to quit over this? There has to be more to the story At what level of education and employment do you quit and ride a bycicle? Too many questions about an article way, way too vague.
  • jsmith0295 10y ago
    Or just something someone would say to someone in a hallway just to say something. People have said things like that to me plenty of times before, and I'm assuming it probably wasn't because they mistook me for a woman.
  • Blackthorn 10y ago
    Don't ever do this to a woman. It's not going to cheer them up. They've been putting up with that crap their whole lives, and all you accomplish by telling them that is to add to the load of crap.
    • protomyth 10y ago
      Don't do it to a guy either. I've put up with this crap and frankly you are just another brick in the wall. People often have resting faces that look unhappy.
  • noobermin 10y ago
    "You alright?" Or less insinuating, "how are things?" works better.
  • 10y ago
• akshayB 10y ago
  Problems like this can happen in any company and this includes Apple as well. Since Apple is one of the biggest Tech companies people are going to make a big deal about it. But it is a big failure if managers/management fail to take actions. The immediate manager should be fired in this case since he or she failed to take any action or involve HR or upper management
  • TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Step one: execute the manager. Are there any intermediate disciplinary steps that could occur? People make mistakes all the time, should we hang them out to dry on the first instance?
    • akshayB 10y ago
      People make mistakes all time but having said that there are level of how bad things can be. Personally I feel this is the worst thing you can do to co-worker.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
        I'm not clear on what you think the worst thing you can do to a co-worker is. I just skimmed the article again, and it says something about the lady being in a room for meeting with a bunch of men and them all joking about being "dismissive about their wives" and that a manager told her to "smile as I walked past". I must have missed a memo somewhere along the line. When did saying "smile" to someone become "one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." Perhaps you were referring to something else, in which case I apologise.
      • flukus 10y ago
        > Personally I feel this is the worst thing you can do to co-worker. How about actually raping them?
  • rjdagost 10y ago
    Why does it seem like every time someone gets offended about something there are calls for people to get fired? There are other ways to address workplace conflicts than to put heads on sticks. As reported in this article, none of these incidents are grounds for termination- not even close.
• guessmyname 10y ago
  Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated with American companies? Are women from other countries afraid to speak about this? Or are American women just overreacting? In this specific case I understand that insinuating a rape scenario — which by the way is not against women but "everybody" — in a work environment is bad, but without knowing what other toxic comments or behavior happened in the same department where this woman was working, I cannot sympathize. Knowing how sensitive are people nowadays (specially in the United States) I wouldn't be surprised if the previous comments were things like "Man, did you see [female name]'s dress today? It's so ugly". They are probably worse than this, but again, without knowing the alleged previous incidents I cannot sympathize with this specific woman. Also, why did she quit? Why not stay and fight for the rights of her other female co-workers? If what I understand from this story is correct, the other women do not report these incidents either because they are afraid of retaliation, or because they learned how to take (or ignore?) a (very stupid) joke. EDIT: On a side note, imagine if the genders were switched. If the people making the bad "joke" were women, and the person reporting the incident was a man. He could have reported this to the CEO but do you think the story would have been published in this website or other? I don't think so. I am glad to have worked remotely for several years, to avoid these incidents with my co-workers.
  • Blackthorn 10y ago
    > Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated with American companies? Are women from other countries afraid to speak about this? Or are American women just overreacting? There's some other possibilities too, like it's worse in America than in other countries.
    • smnscu 10y ago
      As someone who's spent a fair bit of time in Germany and Switzerland, lol no.
      • Blackthorn 10y ago
        That's fine, but it's completely wrong for the poster to present this as a binary choice when it's anything but.
• santaclaus 10y ago
  > theoretical foundations of design patterns There are theoretical foundations of design patterns?
  • zaroth 10y ago
    Well, yes, of course there are. A design pattern you just pulled out of your ass wouldn't make for much of a pattern. So, that form of expression I just used, I'm just wondering if that one is still allowed? It seems pretty colloquial, but these things do change over time.
• helthanatos 10y ago
  Rape jokes certainly are not appropriate and should not be so common, but that language is toxic? Side note: women are always wanting to be more "equal" with men. Maybe they were talking about it so much as a twisted way to include her.
• e40 10y ago
  Reading stuff like this always feels weird to me. I'm the founder of a 30+ year company and, to my knowledge, this has never happened at my company. It's possible it happened and no one told me, but given my position, I would think it would eventually come around to me (I'm the COO now). I have to wonder if behavior like this follows from bad leadership. I'm not saying Tim Cook, given the case of Apple, but middle managers. I just cannot believe that a person above the woman in TFA didn't know about this, and just let it ride, because it was just "boys being boys" or some BS like that. I can tell you if I ever saw or heard of anyone doing this in my company, I would crack down very quick and hard. But more than that, I think the people we have lead by example and I just can't believe anyone would ever do something like TFA outlines.
  • jessaustin 10y ago
    I can tell you if I ever saw or heard of anyone doing this in my company, I would crack down very quick and hard. There's a reason that information doesn't make it all the way up the "chain of command".
  • pcunite 10y ago
    I appreciate your comment. Truly, it won't reach you, it will stay stuck in middle management. To keep something like this from happening you need to implement training. Training for both men and women on what is acceptable "here", because believe it or not, people are not learning from their home or college environments about what you think is acceptable. Then make yourself, or a senior HR person, available to speak with.
  • zaroth 10y ago
    When you say, "this has never happened at my company." I am curious what you mean by that? The article describes several anecdotes which seem to me to paint a fairly broad brush. Never at the end of a meeting at your company has an employee joked about their spouse? Never has someone at your company ever used a violent metaphor to describe losing a sale, or the servers crashing, or learning the release just slipped another month? Never has someone at your company been passed up for promotion and was upset because they felt that they deserved the job? Never has someone at your company had to interview a job candidate without proper training on how to run the interview, or proper time to prepare?
• zaroth 10y ago
  The time that I worked at Apple was brutally hard work. If we're talking about work environment, I think many people reading that article have no concept of how difficult a job it is, how high are the expectations, and how many hours the average engineer is putting in there. This is a very difficult job which can be extremely stressful for a long duration of time. As a society we tend to laud grueling hard work rather than recognize that it's probably the worst aspect of the work environment by far. As far as TFA goes... it appears to be reporting on "leaked" emails telling a one-sided narrative with no attempt to validate the claims. Not to diminish the claims being made, but I think this is technically called "storytelling". Taking it a face value though, it seems tame in comparison to other 'scandals'. I simply do not expect that people will constantly remain professional. They will need to blow off steam, and sometimes the way they do that will not be fully inclusive, or necessarily politically correct. Yes, sometimes men actually complain about their wives at work -- this is not shocking to me. I don't like that employee complaints seem to be poorly handled; all employees should be valued and listened to at least. None of what I read in TFA I really understand to be a hostile work environment, as the term is defined. Is "toxic" supposed to be a new term to describe feeling uncomfortable or not getting the promotion you wanted? Apple's work environment is certainly extreme, but I think for reasons very much apart from gender.
  • 1024core 10y ago
    > None of what I read in TFA I really understand to be a hostile work environment, as the term is defined. Your colleagues joke that someone is coming to rape you, and you're supposed to laugh? I'm not a woman, but I can imagine a woman being really hurt by such a joke. Given the fact that 1 out of 6 women in this country are victims of sexual assault[1], I think it's a joke in poor taste, and does not belong in a workforce. [1] https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem
    • zaroth 10y ago
      I'm a little upset that you took the first paragraph of TFA and mangled it into "Your colleagues joke that someone is coming to rape you." On a Tuesday morning in July, when men on her team began to joke that an office intruder was coming to rape everybody, Danielle decided to speak out about what she described as the "very toxic atmosphere" created by jokes about violent sexual assault. So 'Danielle' overheard a tense joke about an office intruder. After raising a complaint, the person who made the joke apologized profusely. I'm not laughing, but again I'm really not shocked and would not expect a response to this incident beyond the apology already offered.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• forloop 10y ago
  Tldr, Gossip. And making a story out of nothing. (Goes to read Lobsters/reddit.)
• anon54321 10y ago
  Absolute BS. She sent an email to the entire company about this "incident", which I'll include here (names redacted). > 8:53:41 AM Person1: so am I the only one who thinks of the Bed Intruder auto-tune song everytime Person2 warns us of undisclosed persons in the building? > 8:54:47 AM Person3: hide yo wife? > 8:54:57 AM Person1: and yo kids > 8:56:02 AM Person3: well, you're not any more > 8:56:13 AM Person1: #winning > 9:02:13 AM Person5: hilarious. Now the song is stuck in my head! > 9:08:08 AM Person4: -_- > 9:09:43 AM Person4: No > 9:11:10 AM Person4: Could do without having songs referencing sexual assault mentioned. > 9:12:04 AM Person1: fair enough > 9:13:39 AM Person4: Especially joking about it. -_- > 9:18:25 AM Person4: Does not exactly endear me to working during the day when the first thing I see is someone joking about rape in work chat. > 9:18:46 AM Person1: my appologies > 9:33:18 AM Person4: It's completely unacceptable, and creates a very toxic atmosphere. > 9:36:45 AM Person1: obviously that wasn't my intention. it won't happen again. > 9:37:24 AM Person4: Compounded by the fact I am the only woman in the [org], and I have several guys joking about it as well, in work chat. > 9:37:32 AM Person4: It would be unacceptable even if that weren't the case. And then claims to still not feel safe coming back to work after taking a month off due to PTSD from the above incident. There is undoubtedly sexism in the tech industry, and we should all strive towards eliminating it. This, however, is stirring up drama in response to a joke made in poor taste.
  • tanqueray 10y ago
    Person 4's fascist solipsism is astounding. She has transferred the "toxicity" and "unacceptability"in her own mind onto the whole team. A song was referred to but there was no actual mention of sexual assault. The song is not "completely unacceptable" as it is obviously commonly known and legally sold. It is therefore acceptable in the workplace, referred to as it actually was.
    • chillacy 10y ago
      Person1 seems to be genuinely sorry as well. Probably person1 was fearing for his job over what seems to me to be a harmless joke. Sending an email to the entire company instead of talking to the person in a private message is probably the height of Shame Culture. Oh and then publishing this in the news too.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• Bootbyte 10y ago
  Anonymous throwaway. I believe that more context for the rape joke is warranted. At Apple, it's important to cover confidential materials when undisclosed persons are present. An employee wrote that this process reminded them of the viral song Bed Intruder [1]: "hide yo wife, hide yo kids." "Danielle" objected to the joke because the song references sexual assault. The person apologized and promised to not let it happen again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_Intruder_Song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_Intruder_Song
  • daughart 10y ago
    In that case, Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" seems like a funnier joke while simultaneously avoiding the whole rape thing.
• jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going. Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. Perhaps we'll see workplaces where all communication is in writing and on topic. Do we want our workplaces where people gather together as friends as they work, or do we want our workplace relationships to be strictly professional? I think I would prefer to work in a culture where, if you don't like the people you work with, you go find a new job. You don't complain, you get over it or you leave. (Because even telling me my jokes are offensive is a form of harassment itself.) I don't want to work in an office where I can't make friends, tell jokes, or laugh and enjoy life. Life is too short to sit in a room full of people you dont' know, don't like, or don't care about.
  • flukus 10y ago
    > Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. But not talking to someone is also sexist/racist/abelist/whatever, so you better hope you live somewhere with some interesting weather.
  • dingaling 10y ago
    I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of disciplinary action. On occasion people were asked to stop bringing their choice of newspaper into the office, too, as this could be construed as a subtle political signal. After a few months one adapted to restricting the domain of conversation without much effort, and the main problem was when we had visits from overseas staff who would stray into the verboten topics. One became adept at moving the conversation to safer ground.
    • flukus 10y ago
      Politics and religion were particularly touchy in Northern Ireland, but why sport?
• applethrow2 10y ago
  I'm risking a lot here... Apple employee here: I only want to provide context. None of us want a toxic environment. We, at Apple, pride ourselves on the fact that we are accepting of all backgrounds, nationalities, genders, religions. I, personally, have struggled with ensuring a diverse set of folks on my team or all backgrounds. We love the fact that we're helping to lead the industry with regard to diversity. And "Danielle's" case is unfortunate. Danielle is of course an alias to protect the original identity. And I sincerely thank Mic for doing so. In an internal chat, someone made a reference to the "Hide Your Kids Hide Your Wife" meme about something technical. But this wasn't the intention of the sender. Danielle, a gay transgender male, explained that this was an inappropriate reference, the offender apologized immediately and said that this comment was not to make fun of rape. Danielle in this case had a unique set of circumstances that made her especially sensitive to this kind of comment. And we should all be careful about what we say. And I completely agree with her that this kind of content has no place at Apple. This thread was meant to be forwarded to Tim Cook, but was accidentally sent to a large internal group. This is how it was leaked. I wish Mic would release the full emails with names redacted so that you all would see what was actually said. The lesson here is: think about what you're saying. Sexual assault destroys humans.
  • huhtenberg 10y ago
    > We, at Apple, pride ourselves on the fact that we are accepting of all backgrounds, nationalities, genders, religions. Reads like a PR boilerplate.
    • ca1ek 10y ago
      Because it is.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • daughart 10y ago
      Right? Like no one could actually be proud to work in an inclusive environment.
  • 10y ago
• ManlyBread 10y ago
  Danielle doesn't seem like a person I'd like to work with.
  • whamlastxmas 10y ago
    After reading the chat transcript, I would probably quit my job if I had to work with someone like her. Mentioning a song, get accused of harassment and promoting rape culture, having coworker take medical leave for a month for PTSD? Over someone mentioning a song? Wow.
  • daughart 10y ago
    Danielle probably doesn't want to work with you either.
• MrLeftHand 10y ago
  It's like the penny-arcade dkwolf joke over again. Or the spiderwoman crawling pose. From the article feels like they were joking about everyone getting raped, including men. Anyway, rape is a serious crime, no doubt about that and the joke might have crossed a line. But were do we draw a line by getting offended or not? These lines are pushed further out every time and sometimes limiting freedoms. Also, men can be sexist, that's true, but we are still in a position where women have an advantage, a powerful tool to call out someone being sexist and inconsiderate and get that said person into trouble and brand him so his future prospects are completely destroyed. Is being offended about a joke enough to cripple someones future and life? Looks like men always have to be extra careful about what they say and what they do. I wonder when this whole gender gap won't spill over to become from a male dominant society to a female dominant one. It's hard to find equal grounds apparently.
  • eli 10y ago
    Rape jokes should not be told at work, period.
    • MrLeftHand 10y ago
      Rape goes both ways. Men and women can get raped. Someone telling rape jokes can be disgusting and inappropriate, but it will stay as a joke. Agree, a workplace is not a good place to tell these. In fact there might not be a good place for it. Also, if we go further down the rabbit hole and say that rape jokes promote rape, then we can start saying that video games promote violence, etc... My concern is to have someone getting fired or prosecuted for a joke. Getting his career broken because of a stupid joke. You can feel disgusted or even violated, but with the counter actions you can do more damage to the other person compared to the one you received.
      • GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
        If you don't want to get fired for making a rape joke at work, there's a pretty easy solution to that. (Spoiler: it's "don't make a rape joke at work.")
• Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  I know three ex-Apple employees, they all describe it as akin to the film Office Space. My theory is that the whole point of the new UFO campus is to jolt the working environment out of the 1980's. Sort of like replacing, rather than updating, the Mac Classic OS, in a way. [am I getting downvoted for knowing people who worked at Apple, or for having a theory?]
• daughart 10y ago
  It's almost hard to read the comments on here. "It's a stressful environment---people have to blow off steam." "Is X comment really that offensive?" "Joking around is important to office culture." "The real damage is punishing people who said the offensive thing when he/she didn't mean anything by it." It's really not that complicated. Act professionally at work. Working at a job isn't easy, but part of the responsibility of work is to _act_ professionally, and delivering genius code doesn't give anyone a pass to act unprofessionally. When you feel an impulse to talk or joke about physical appearance, politics, religion, sex, gender, rape, racial issues, nationality/ethnicity, etc., just hold your tongue! Or write it in a little book and save it for when you're at the bar with friends. If you do say something, and inevitably get that little "I shouldn't have said that" prickle in the back of your brain---simply immediately apologize and move on! If you don't get that prickle, and a co-worker or manager says something, just take it at face value that what you said was not professional, because professional actions never raise the possibility of personal offense. That is the bare minimum you are required to do. If you're a little more social justice oriented, you might even become aware of the ways women and minorities are treated unfairly, and take special actions to fix this. Take notice the next time you're in YAAMM -- "yet another all male meeting" -- and think about whether there are any women who could contribute but were not invited. If you hear a good idea, give credit to the originator when you repeat it. It's actually not that hard.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • forgottenpass 10y ago
    When you feel an impulse to talk or joke about physical appearance, politics, religion, sex, gender, rape, racial issues, nationality/ethnicity, etc., just hold your tongue! Going to such extremes to guarantee never offending anyone is a great way to wind up unhappy and alone at work. It's fine if that's what you want - when I don't like talking to my coworkers in the first place I happily implement that strategy. Chances are that anyone using that strategy and isn't also miserable has a fair number of unspoken assumptions about acceptable behavior, and isn't actually using that strategy. They're just slightly more guarded than in their normal behavior.
• cpks 10y ago
  If someone, of either gender, whom I was hiring as a designer, went into "advanced learning theory and the use of metaphor and semiotics along with the theoretical foundations of design patterns," my response would be to consider them non-technical and not hire them. And "technical," for a designer, means CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and similar. Most of the examples in the article seemed baked.