Company: Apple
Date: 2013-11-08
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

Innovative and unique company, inconsistent management
Pros: Apple is a great company. The pay is outstanding for retail, they offer part time benefits and many other cool perks. You meet amazing people, co-workers are brilliant and very talented!  Its a great job for a while but don't get stuck there just because they pay well. Many opportunities for growth...if you are willing to look past their inconsistencies. You could easily work your way up to 20+ dollars per hour within 2 years without becoming a manager. Unheard of in retail! Health care, transportation benefits, free services, stock purchase plan. Easy access employee website.
Cons: Lost sight of their core value "our core is our people" I started working at Apple in 2007 and boy have things changed! It has gotten more and more corporate and more and more dehumanizing focusing more on policies and proceedures than the wellbeing of the employees. The daily foot traffic in the store is immense! The climate can be very emotionally overwhelming, loud, and overly stimulating...yeah you are probably thinking I am some sensitive shmuck! But the daily traffic gets overwhelming when you are responsible for  dealing with angry customers daily in an environment where you have little support! Managers are inconsistent in implementing company policy, constantly making exceptions for customers who scream and disrespect employees. THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH EMPLOYEES ON THE FLOOR!! BUT MANAGEMENT EXPECTS US TO HELP 4-6 PEOPLE AT ONCE TO MAKE UP FOR IT. LASTLY; moving up in the company is extremely difficult! there are many lateral promotions that warrant no pay raise, but managers are extremely inconsistent in their reasoning for promoting people. You could have perfect numbers and attendence but they will give the promotion to someone who has worse numbers but just sucks up to them more and they will give you a lame reason such as "we think you need to work on your peer to peer relationships" (happened to several of my co-workers) THERE ARE NO REAL BEARRINGS FOR PROMOTIONS. AND MOST "PROMOTIONS" ARE LATERAL AND ALLOW YOU TO WORK HARDER AND DO MORE IN THE STORE WITHOUT GETTING PAID A CENT MORE...THEY HAVE A REALLY WONDERFUL WAY OF TRICKING YOU INTO FEELING LIKE YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL AND HAPPY THEY GRANTED YOU WITH THIS OPORTUNITY!!! AND THEN DURING THE REVIEW THEY WILL COMMENT ON HOW YOU DON'T SMILE ENOUGH IN YOUR NEW ROLE AND THEY ARE WORRIED YOU ARE GETTING BURNED OUT................AFTER GETTING YELLED AT BY A CUSTOMER EVER HOUR THAT DOESNT WANT TO OBIDE BY THE COMPANY POLICY, AND THEN AFTER THAT CUSTOMER SCREAMS AT YOU AND DEMANDS A MANAGER THE MANAGER GIVES THEM EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT! MAKING YOU LOOK LIKE THE BAD GUY WHEN THEY TOLD YOU TO UPHOLD COMPANY POLICY! IT CAN BE HARD TO KEEP SMILING! BUT WHEN AN EMPLOYEE NEEDS AN EXCEPTION MADE FOR THEM???OOOOHHHH NOOOOO....THE POLICY IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THEN!!! They say they want to give you more personal development training time but you have to FIGHT for it!

ONE MORE THING! The corporate availability requirements! you are forced to give 29 hours of open availability and they can ether give you 5 hours a week or the full 29....you cannot request to work more or less. THEY ARE SEVERELY INCONSIDERATE AND UNFLEXIBLE ABOUT PERSONAL AND FAMILY EMERGENCIES! IF YOUR GRANDMA DIES AND YOU CANT GET YOUR SHIFT COVERED IN TIME OH WELL! YOU WILL RECIEVE AN ATTENDENCE POINT EVEN IF YOU NOTIFIY THEM A WEEK IN ADVANCE! EVERYTHING IS DONE BY A COMPUTER...ALTHOUGH MANAGEMENT HAS OVERRIDING POWERS THEY WILL SELDOM MAKE EXCEPTIONS AND JUST SAY "SORRY THE COMPUTER ALREADY SCHEDULED YOU...I HOPE YOU FIGURE SOMETHING OUT!"