Company: Apple
Date: 2008-05-03
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

Local Managers Undermine Apple Corporate.
Pros: The corporation as a whole is a wonderful place to work. The training is excellent, and the support from corporate is wonderful. You'll learn so much that will help you later in life about technology. You'll also associate with a great array of people in both your fellow staffers and the customers: artists, programmers, health care providers, business people. You get to see new products and new technologies first hand. You also get to have a unique position to learn what's going on in the small developers community. One more thing: it's incredibly rewarding to help guide people to technology tools that are going to make their lives more interesting.
Cons: You're at the tow of local managers, who themselves often don't live up to Apple's mission or culture. Often times, the managers of the local retail stores will present themselves to their corporate managers as if they're all about the Apple culture, and then turn around to be the meanest people in the world. In my experience, the workers at my store were consistently appalled at how viscous our general manager was to customers and fellow employees alike. He would do or say anything to keep somebody from returning something, even if it was a blatant mis-statement of Apple policy. Management is in a unique position to distort Apple policy and culture on the ground, and it was shocking to see. It is ultimately why I decided to leave.