Company: Apple
Date: 2008-05-30
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

Apple: Decent Retail Gig
Pros: Overall, Apple has a great and friendly atmosphere, with a good deal of morale and camaraderie between coworkers. You can learn a lot from your coworkers too. Apple and many other third party companies also provide a lot of free software to Apple employees. There are a few great benefits Apple offers, but managers don't advertise to new employees, such as free bus passes for commuters. Even with the stress of being expected by customers to know absolutely everything about electronics, Apple has to be the best retail gig around.
Cons: There is not enough training on products and procedures. Often because of low staffing and high retail turnover, new employees are thrown out on the floor to fend for themselves. There is also too much dependency on management, which make employees and customers have to wait longer than they should. There is also too much focus on metrics (add-ons of the extended warranty, .mac, etc) that it doesn't matter how much you sell, just your percentage of the metrics that matter. This leads to some employees cheating by giving credit for sales that didn't meet any metrics to house instead of their own name. There is also not enough promotion from within, which leads to disgruntled employees. The high amount of work and stress I have to put up with on a regular basis doesn't not match the petty wage I make.