Company: Apple
Date: 2018-02-14
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

I still have nightmares about this place and wake up in cold sweats.
Pros: You get to fly business class on international trips but in return you have to work 14 hour days whilst there.
Cons: So many but here goes-

- most employees are brainwashed, to the extent that you have to question whether you are talking to a real human being with feelings and emotions or someone you know is so manipulated that you have to watch every word you say.

- you have to join conference calls at 11pm, 1am, 3am, 4am, 6am.  You have to join them. They tried to curb it but nothing changed and if you don't join you'd be told off for it.  No matter the circumstances.

- you are called into meetings or have to attend other people's meetings.  I calculated the hours per week in meetings and on average it worked out at around 25 hours per week.  Most of the time it's just another employee glorifying their own project which is nothing to do with you.

- there is an awful culture of micro-management, everything is micro-managed.  It makes you question whether it would be quicker if the manager just did the job, but they're too busy so you're just there to handle the projects that trickle down that your manager should be doing.

- the pay is competitive, but competitive just means they're paying the same as other corporates that are under paying there staff.  

- there is no social life to this job.  No one goes for drinks or socialises with each other.  They're too busy or too tired from work.  It's quite depressing really.

- once a week you get called into an all hands meeting where someone talks about how great we're all doing and every one stands there and claps in a righteous way, it's like North Korea.

- you need to be on emails from 6am to 12am. Everyday.  If you leave work at 6pm, you better get home, have dinner and be expected to answer emails by 7pm.  You will be cautioned if you don't answer emails outside of office hours.  It still haunts me "you never work outside of office hours", "well yes I do because I'm on 4 hours of conference calls between 6pm and 6am, and you don't pay for me working outside of office hours"

- if you step 3 meters away from your computer without locking it you will be cautioned.

- if you go to the sound system and pick a playlist that isn't Katy Perry or the Weeknd, then someone will scuttle over and change it within 30 seconds, and I mean scuttle...like a little crab.

- the meeting room booking system is convoluted.  There are about 59 meeting rooms, but you can't use them because they are restricted for more important people who don't use them.

- I remember in the early days they said "don't use linkedin or update your profile otherwise we'll know you're looking for a new job"

- everyone is busy and stressed all the time.  It's not a nice environment to be in.

- the Christmas party was more like a funeral.

- the churn rate is shocking, people you just start to get along with just disappear and they can't say they're leaving, so all of a sudden you're left with the old timers, again.

- whenever there is a live stream from cupertino you have to stay late and watch, which would be fine if they attempted to make an effort to keep us in until 8:30pm.  But they don't, you sit there in these really uncomfortable chairs, and there's this one person who goes "woo" when something is announced when most of us just want to get home to our families.

- everyone is so serious all the time.

- HR should stand for horrendous robot.  Because that is what it is.  You log a ticket then if you're lucky you get an email from someone who didn't read your ticket and can't speak to them and it takes about 10 days for a reply every time.  Remember, you are just another cog in the machine so you don't have the right to one on one support for HR.

- for a company that has the most money in the world you'd expect the best benefits in the world.  But if anything they're average at best.  When you read a review saying the benefits are good, it's because they're better than some laundrette in Kansas.

- if you have a family, please don't bother. They don't care that you have anything else important in your own life but Apple.

- I probably don't have to mention this but I'm putting it in for the keywords.  There is no work/life balance.  There's work and work.  I've seen Apple employees at a gig sneak off to be on a conference call.