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I have worked as a contractor for Apple. I have to say that my personal experiences have been generally positive. Although I am only working with them at certai

I have worked as a contractor for Apple. I have to say that my personal experiences have been generally positive. Although I am only working with them at certain periods so it's not like I'm a "full-time" contractor so I can understand the frustration of being in that kind of position. Overall, I found them to be very accommodating and concerned with our needs. They treated us well. There has never been any expectation on my part that I would be receiving any regular employee benefits. I felt like Apple treated us better than our actual employer/sub-contractor and if there was anything good coming to us it was from Apple and not our sub contractor. The only thing I can relate to is the toilet situation. For some reason Apple has offices that can accommodate 100s of staff with literally 3 toilet cubicles to go around. The toilet door is like a conveyor belt and I often have to go several times until I can find an empty cubicle. Whoever designed these offices severely underestimated the allocation of toilets.

RandallBrown 8y ago
I did a tour of Pixar and they said Steve Jobs wanted to have 1 bathroom in the whole building. That would force everyone to walk past each other and encourage more interaction. Turns out this wasn't allowed by building codes, but I wouldn't be surprised if somehow this "spirit" made it's way to Apple as well. Although I've had the same problem in every male dominated tech company office I've worked in. A few years back Amazon had to have people work from home because there weren't enough bathrooms in their office.
eatbitseveryday 8y ago
Never heard a toilet stall referred to as a 'cubicle' before. A cubicle is where my desk is located, and that is not in the bathroom :)
- deleted 8y ago
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- chrisseaton 8y ago
  Might be British English as it sounds normal to me.
chrisseaton 8y ago
What are these people doing? I couldn't figure out what the contractors actual jobs are. If they're tech workers and they don't like the conditions aren't there many other good options in Silicon Valley? I know it's not easy for everyone to switch jobs and interviewing is very hard but why's it so much harder for these contractors in particular that means they're putting up with conditions that are so bad, like access to bathrooms?
lokidokiro 8y ago
Toilets are a problem at most tech companies it seems. They build the bathrooms under the assumption that the gender ratio in the building will be relatively equal, but then the actual employees end up being 70% male and lines to use the men's bathrooms abound.

RandallBrown 8y ago

I did a tour of Pixar and they said Steve Jobs wanted to have 1 bathroom in the whole building. That would force everyone to walk past each other and encourage more interaction. Turns out this wasn't allowed by building codes, but I wouldn't be surprised if somehow this "spirit" made it's way to Apple as well. Although I've had the same problem in every male dominated tech company office I've worked in. A few years back Amazon had to have people work from home because there weren't enough bathrooms in their office.

eatbitseveryday 8y ago

Never heard a toilet stall referred to as a 'cubicle' before. A cubicle is where my desk is located, and that is not in the bathroom :)

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 8y ago
Might be British English as it sounds normal to me.

chrisseaton 8y ago

What are these people doing? I couldn't figure out what the contractors actual jobs are. If they're tech workers and they don't like the conditions aren't there many other good options in Silicon Valley? I know it's not easy for everyone to switch jobs and interviewing is very hard but why's it so much harder for these contractors in particular that means they're putting up with conditions that are so bad, like access to bathrooms?

lokidokiro 8y ago

Toilets are a problem at most tech companies it seems. They build the bathrooms under the assumption that the gender ratio in the building will be relatively equal, but then the actual employees end up being 70% male and lines to use the men's bathrooms abound.