Company: Apple
Date: 2014-04-10
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

A good company, with an energetic corporate culture. Stringent restrictions keep employee satisfaction lower.
Pros: Great products and an energetic workforce to back it up. Excellent perks with corporate benefits, health care, 401k, the works. Good discounts on products. An attempt to personalize communication between management and employees.

They do give you reasonable tools to help you fulfill your role. Expectations are high which keeps things interesting. Some managers genuinely care about your happiness and satisfaction, others seem aloof and self-concerned.
Cons: Things are always in flux. You will likely not know about projects or new expectations until they are already announced, which makes it feel like you're always catching up. The job expectations are often increased without training to make sure you're able to do them right away. New opportunities can be spotty, and you have to have the right stuff when they come up. There is no time to prepare for positions down the road other than doing your current job exceedingly well. 

As far as the role specifically, being on the phones constantly is wearing and leads to a lot of fatigue. There are almost no systems in place for job variation or ways to get different kinds of experience. Hard to make lateral moves within the company. Management can be stiff and unwilling/unable to make exceptions for when life issues come up.

Scheduling is a nightmare in this job. Your schedule preferences are limited and based on performance, and it is near impossible to swap shifts with someone, even when you have legitimate reasons for it (school, church, etc). Makes it very hard to plan any down time.

Few systems in place to attain new skills without an interested manager backing you up, which doesn't always happen.