Company: Apple
Date: 2012-04-29
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

With over 100 BILLION in cash, you would think Apple would pay better!
Pros: At Apple we are constantly being encouraged to better ourselves through training and educational reimbursement programs.  Apple takes great care choosing it's employees which results in amazing teams of people which are greatly diversified but yet extremely cohesive.
Cons: Apple's absence and attendance policy is not lenient enough.  It is far too easy to make an honest mistake like recording your next day's shift arrival time incorrectly only to find out upon your arrival at work that management made no bother to contact you.  When you're an hour late at Apple you are docked TWO points for a single occasion.  A third point with in a three month period puts an employee on final notice for an additional rolling six months.  No late, no sick, no emergencies or Apple will terminate!  
     It seems that a week doesn't go by without some press release from Apple touting how amazing sales are currently going or recent quarter results have blown away last quarter results or how Apple has amassed even more millions to try and stuff into their already  over-flowing coffers.  Well, on the flip side not a week goes by in an Apple retail store where store management is pressured from above to keep the stores staffed with as few employees as possible.  The word "utilization" is constantly heard in the back halls of an Apple Retail Store.  The idea is that if the staff sees enough people per quarter; the store will be rewarded additional positions on different teams.  For example if the Creative team has X number of personal training and workshops consistently throughout a fiscal quarter, an additional Creative trainer will be added to that team.  The team's weekly goals are set before the quarter begins.  The team then sets out at the beginning of a quarter under the ruse that if the team works hard everyday and achieves these goals consistently then a new position will open to help with the constantly increasing workload.  One thing is for sure right now at Apple... More and more people are buying their products.  Foot traffic is increasing at an almost exponential rate; yet quarter after quarter with all or almost every goal met those promised additional positions barely trickle in or fail to materialize at all.  In the end the current employees continue to feel more and more pressure to stretch Apple's "greatest resource, our soul, ...our people."  thinner and thinner to meet the increased business needs.   
     As an Apple Family Room Specialist I find myself coming in contact and interacting with hundreds of people on a weekly basis.  During these interactions I may be fixing a device, replacing or swapping a device.  I may be teaching someone how to properly use their device.  Many times renewing a customer's faith in the product and the company that made it.  The role of the FRS has many hats sometimes.  If an FRS is Mac trained, but a Genius position hasn't opened up yet (see utilization rant in last paragraph) that FRS is expected to do all the duties a much higher paid Genius would have to do.  FRS's are also required to spend a great majority of their clocked in time performing the duties of a somewhat higher paid Creative.  All the training of the highest paid hourly positions, but your move from where you started at Apple up in the Red Zone as a Specialist back to the Family Room as an FRS in considered a "lateral" movement.  Lateral??!  How is this so?  FRS's have to attend specialized Family Room Foundations training to even achieve the FRS title.  A GYOG (Grow Your Own Genius) FRS has to take number of highly specialized certification exams before that FRS can take any Mac appointments.  Again, the FRS trains, obtains specialized skill sets that are then often called upon because non-GYOG trained FRS's cannot take MAC appointments.  The pay needs to reflect the training and know-how. Apple is capitalizing on this ambiguous nature of the FRS role.  Check into any Apple store's Family Room and this fact is plain as day.  FRS positions will out-number or even match the Genius and Creative positions when combined.  Good job Apple!  Way to get all that you can out of an employee without paying them a fair wage!