Company: Apple
Date: 2011-08-24
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: current

Room to spread your wings
Pros: The company practises the ideals and values it preaches. Its a company you can believe in. Its kind of a corporation revolution, a movement to change the way corporations conduct business and treat individual customers and employees.
It aims to care for each individual employee and customer more so than any other corporation I have worked for. Paid well enough to take the issue of money off the table so people can concentrate on giving their best effort. Company trusts you, gives you the right tools and the space to let you do what you need to do to get the best result. Its a breeding ground for creativity and brilliance because there is an unspoken pride in employess, no sense of oppression, encouraged to show off your colours. Very few people here that are not focused. Management is chosen very carefully, usually the best in their field with a natural people management talent. No managers you would rather avoid here. 20 different positions open at any one time, always room to move onto bigger and better things if you fancy it. Free VHI, stock options, discounts on  products, large discounts on everything from other companies. If you're not qualified, Apple will train you, company will bend backwards to facilitate college by night. I think the most satisfying thing for me personally is that I feel empowered to do my job properly and I can really help people. I feel appreciated, I feel my work is appreciated and rewarded. I feel like Apple cares in general. Apple hires people who care and go on caring. Work atmosphere is perfect as a result. I plan to stay and progress my career in the company, while doing college by night. It would take an extradinary job offer to make me walk away from this company, this movement.
Cons: If you work on a phone based job, like Technical Support, be prepared for Shift Work  and weekends. Otherwise, its standard office hours. (Customer Relations don't work weekends but do have some late shifts to back up Tech)

50% of Apple are all systems go on Bank Holidays, not necessarily just phone based agents. The good news is that you get the bank holiday back as vacation hours so you end up with something like 30 days of holidays per year. Much better than double pay that goes to the tax man anyway.