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I worked for Apple retail in San Francisco. Being an early retail employee in the Bay Area, we had very close ties to Cupertino. I worked when Steve was still a
by someonehere 6y ago
I worked for Apple retail in San Francisco. Being an early retail employee in the Bay Area, we had very close ties to Cupertino. I worked when Steve was still alive.
* Retail management in my store ruled by fear. I heard from other stores across the US this was the same as well.
* Promotions were handed out to those who kissed ass the hardest. Even if they were unqualified or cheated on promotion exams, if they brown nosed enough they got promoted.
* The goal for every retail employee was to eventually make it to Cupertino and work for the corporate side of things. Either Genius support or logistics in Elk Grove.
* Those who I knew who made it to Cupertino shared similar experience to the author’s post.
Apple comes off as a happy family friendly company, when in reality behind the scenes it’s a rule by fear culture.
- xenihn 6y agoSounds like Disney.
- worker767424 6y agoExplains why Pixar was such a good fit with Disney.
- lemonspat 6y agoDo you mean park side or Corp side? Because I’ve heard bad stories about the park side of things
- soared 6y agoPark is fine if you're okay with following rules to a T. If you want to think for yourself, well...
- abdabab 6y agoYou can sense it when you walk into an Apple store. I met a few unnecessarily rude salesperson and wondered how or why they were still there.
- asdff 6y agoI've had that sort of experience at the genius bar of all places.
- worker767424 6y ago> Being an early retail employee in the Bay Area, we had very close ties to Cupertino. I worked when Steve was still alive. Steve Jobs actually interacted with retail underlings?!
- vmception 6y agoTheir post doesn't say that, and I too read the chosen wording twice. Their employment overlapped with Steve Job's lifespan, that's it. That's important to them to say, and is completely useless to us. That's all.
- overkalix 6y agoThe way I interpreted is, this torture culture is not a recent development. It already existed during SJ watch.
- saagarjha 6y agoCan we please not call people who work in retail “underlings”?
- worker767424 6y agoI'd call engineers underlings, too. It's more honest than "retail associate."
- sum_numpty 6y agoCalm down, Karen.
- dang 6y agoHey, this kind of post will get you banned here because we're trying for something different than internet default. Would you mind reading https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using HN in the intended spirit?
- 6y ago
- romanovcode 6y ago> Apple comes off as a happy family friendly company, when in reality behind the scenes it’s a rule by fear culture. Just like any other company.
- alexc9 6y agoNot really. Worked for 5 companies, 2 were ruled by fear culture (including an explicit stack ranking of employees every 2 quarters, with the bottom ones being fired), one by desperation, one by... inertia maybe. The 5th is Google. Still can't figure out what it's ruled by exactly, but absolutely no fear, yet it mostly works. That's why I'm sticking around, I guess. I've moved teams and orgs quite a bit, so I don't think it's just me being lucky with a manager. If there is fear, it's in quite isolated pockets.
- refulgentis 6y ago+1, if anything, its frustratingly the opposite from my perspective (i.e. its hard to find peers who want to dig into things, the SWE is the center of the universe, personal lack of interest is enough to refuse work)
- frongpik 6y agoAt least when I was there, google seemed like an island with melancholic, but smart and kind pandas who never had to compete for food, for the food was brought to them by a ferry, and never had to do any work, unless they had a spark of curiosity that made them explore an interesting rock or mess with sand on the beach. All pandas were consistently exceeding expectations, even if they slept on a tree most of the day.
- refulgentis 6y agoLOL, you nailed it, thank you very much