Company: Apple
Date: 2018-09-02
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Don't let them fool you!
Pros: The Monday to Friday free fruit, although you're only allowed to take one piece and also have to make sure only to take from the fruit bowl that is label for you.
Cons: A few months ago or so, I discovered an interesting article called ‘Work for Loyal Employers. Life is too short for anything else!’. I asked myself, are there still employers worth working for, if so where are they because let’s face it around 99% of the people just go to work because they have to in order to pay rent, mortgage, etc. and they’re not working for supervisors or company who treat them right. This inspired me to write an honest review about one of the biggest companies of our time, a company everyone seems to have in high esteem, too high in my opinion, and always looks the other way when they do something hideous - I’m talking about Apple.
There might be similar or worse conditions in other of their offices but this is regarding the office in London. I started to work for Apple as a contractor via an agency (I might write a separate review about them) and remember well, how full of dreams and innocent I was when I started my first day at Apple and now after having worked there for almost a year I have come out of there with my dreams crushed and a nearly dead mind because of the job - both of them thankfully recovering, albeit slowly.
At first, all supervisors are friendly, although some faked it so strongly that it cringes and are pretty passive-aggressive to the point that it can make you sick to your stomach. If you’re a contractor and have an issue with your employer (the agency), such as late payment or no payment at all, don’t have any hopes that Apple will help you sort this out, because they won’t even acknowledge you or the issue and prefer to do like it never happened or just say they’re your employer. Apple’s way of saying we do not care whether you get paid or not as long as you get the job done. Also, Apple didn’t do any in-depth research about the agency they hired and turned out that one of the biggest issues - inaccurate payment/no payment - was happening in all their branches across the country.
From the beginning, Apple will tell you that no matter if you’re a contractor or not, you’re part of the team and welcome any feedback. However, the truth is that you’ll always be at the bottom of the food chain and the only type of feedback they welcome is the positive one. If you want to succeed and move forward in the company, keep the real constructive feedback to yourself, and if you don’t mind informing on your work colleagues for silly things as well.
There’s a strict separatism regime like in the Middle Ages (the common folk and royalty) but at Apple, it’s between the permanent staff and the contractors. This starts from the very beginning with the ID being a different colour compared to that of the permanent staff, first sign you’re not really part of the team.
Forget about having any interaction with colleagues from other departments. In their eyes, you don’t exist and they won’t even acknowledge your existence. I’m not suggesting to talk about work because it’s not allowed and I fully understand this, but not having the decency to say ‘good morning, how are you?’ back to someone who is talking to you and just treats you like you’re invisible/beneath them is disgusting, also the managers won’t sit and eat at the same table as you and this is not a joke, they’ll sit at their own table without any contractors in sight.
You’ll also be excluded from the company’s parties and they keep them highly classified, this one was a first for me. I’ve had my fair share of fixed-term jobs for many companies (big and small ones) and they all welcomed me to their parties, whether I had recently started or been there for years, whether I was a contractor, part-time, full-time, etc. e.g. during one of my FTC jobs, my senior told me the company was invited to an event (and it was quite a luxurious one too) and asked me if I wanted to assist as well and I was barely a week at the job! You can say that they've got the right not to invite you but it shows that they don’t consider you part of the company.
Moreover, you’re not allowed to send parcels to the office. If you do, they’ll “kindly” ask you to not send any personal post/parcels to the office as they only can receive parcels related to Apple work as it’s “Apple’s policy”. Nonetheless, the permanent staff will constantly send stuff to the office, like clothes from H&M, gym products, things from Amazon, etc. So much for products only Apple-related... The first time, you’ll get a warning but if it happens again they’ll refuse to take the parcel and it’ll be returned. As a contractor, I spent 40 hours a week at the company with only half an hour lunch break and some people have a long home journey and wouldn’t make it on time to pick up the parcel because the post offices are closed after work.
If you require specific work equipment due to a medical condition or similar no matter whether you were born with it or due to an accident, then strongly avoid Apple to work as a contractor. They’ll beat around the bush for months with back and forth emails, so that you eventually give up and forget about it, no matter if you’ve got a doctor’s letter stating you require it. They’ll find an excuse so as not to approve it, much less provide it, and go as far as saying ‘I think the doctor meant to say that you need something else’. If someone has a doctor’s letter confirming you’ve got a medical condition and for said condition, you require special equipment, what on Earth more do you require? And how do you know what the doctor meant? Are you a doctor too now? Can you read minds? Firstly, it’s very hard to get an appointment, most of them are in 3 to 4 weeks’ time (if you’re lucky unless you can afford private medical healthcare) and until then you’re supposed to work as usual while being in constant pain? Secondly, if diverse body areas are affected you’ve to go to different doctors in the UK, meaning to book an appointment for each speciality doctor you’ve to see, and by the time you’ve got all documents they “require” months have already passed. No wonder that there isn’t a single person with a disability working at the company, so much for diversity at their workplace.
In addition, keeping up morale is the responsibility of the contractor ONLY, not of the company you work for too. You’ve to come up with ideas to improve the relationships - little info for Apple, the relationships between contractors are not the problem, it’s the lack of relationship, understanding, and support between contractor and Apple that is lacking, if not completely non-existent. It’s not surprising that the company DOES NOT care about you, even if you’re a great and hardworking employee and exceed in the assignments given, for them YOU ARE REPLACEABLE.
About the job itself. The job is easy, like incredibly easy. It’s so easy that your brain will reach a state similar to a coma while still being awake after only a few weeks (if not days) due to the constant repetition and lack of innovation/improvement for the tasks. However, policies can change rapidly and frequently even contradict themselves and if you ask for further clarification they’ll dismiss you or tell you the exact same information given by the policies you already read and make no sense.
Now to the part on how you succeed on becoming a permanent employee, even though they say this is impossible from day one. Well, if you really want to be part of the cult then follow these guidelines: don’t think outside the box, don’t look left or right and be close-minded, don’t ask for deeper clarification or further questions about a topic, go with their flow, become best buddies with the managers, inform on your colleagues – e.g. a work colleague is making a constructive comment about work, company, etc. or checking their phone while sitting on their desk while waiting for the work tools to load (which take ages by the way), then go and have a tête-à-tête with a manager about them, make sure to mention the employee’s name. At a certain stage, they’ll approach you and praise you for all your great espionage data, I mean feedback and “hard work” followed by an interview with other permanent staff from other countries where your ego will be moulded to their vision and tell you that from now on you’re part of the higher-up and given the great power of prying on your colleagues and patrol the office to make sure only work-related tools are on display and the same for conversations - after all, this is kindergarten and someone has to breathe down your neck at all times.
No wonder when I was watching ‘The Circle’ the first thing that came to my mind was ‘they should’ve called it Apple’. You can be as hard-working and punctual, kind and honest, always helping out others, even taking the responsibility of training others which is actually the managers’ job, and even excel at work and in all your tasks all you want because if you’re not ready to be submissive, forget your principles, and backstab your colleagues you will never be one of them.
These reasons might seem petty to some, particularly to those who think alike as Apple and are already under the spell of Apple’s indoctrination. Nevertheless, if you put them all together and imagine yourself going to work five days a week during a daily eight-hour shift where you see and experience these factors and many more day after day after day, you’ll realise that a job at Apple nor Apple itself is truly worth it and also shows, the bigger the company the less value an employee/contractor will have.
Please don’t think this review is coming from someone who is envious (yes, envious not jealous there’s a difference) for not being promoted or made permanent, and I know that my review might be fairly derogatory and too much for some to handle (probably for Apple too), but I don’t sugarcoat things particularly when it comes to the truth and Apple deserves it. I can happily and proudly say that I got a much better and permanent job offer at a company that highly values and greatly rewards their employees as well as gives them the opportunity to develop themselves and I don’t have to be an unscrupulous lowlife and can keep a clear conscience.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for backstabbing, two-faced politics, lies, hypocrisy, lack of recognition for hard work and dedication, no real employee value, and modernised and legal slavery, then by all means, Apple is your company.
Apple, your slogan is ‘think different’ but where is that different? You are a company that generates a revenue between $50-55 (or more) billion a year and pays only around 10% taxes on said amount (you might even surpass the trillion dollars soon), so why not bother in improving your work conditions and relationships among your permanent staff and contractors?
Peace out!