Company: Apple
Date: 2017-02-23
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

All that glitters is not gold
Pros: Apple is always great to have on the resume.  And a great conversation starter.  Also the benefits are top notch.  I work from home, so this is definitely a pro (and sometimes a con) as well.  Also if you like to buy Apple products the discounts that you get are pretty decent.
Cons: Where do I start?  'All that glitters is not gold'; 'The grass isn't always greener on the other side'.  These are a few sayings that come to mind when people say they want to work for Apple.  If you work in Applecare, you are a call center worker.  No matter how they dress it up to you.  Chat, Email or Phones.  It's a call center, so comes with it the cons of working in a call center.

Shift Scheduling - Is absolutely abysmal.  Depending on your department, you'll have to change your schedule in a little as every 3 months or 6 months. So say goodbye to any obligations you have outside of work, because when a shift is assigned to you.  It's yours, and you have to work it.  Yes, they try to sugar coat and say you can swap with someone else, but if it's already a crazy shift to begin with, nobody else is going to want it.

Work life Balance - Where? At the time of this writing you get no holidays off in Applecare (or weekends depending on your schedule).  When I first started, you did.  But now, nada.  365 days a year the queues are opened. However management (your manager) gets these days off (and weekends). How nice.

Work tools - Will never work properly.  I've never worked at a company where there was so many issues with work tools.  The kicker is you'll still need to be able to assist the customers and expected to get awesome CSATs with non-working tools.  

Micromanagement - You'll never do anything right.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  Your manager will find fault in anything that you do, it's expected.  Good calls or chats will still be nit picked and have endless "one on ones" on discussing how it could have been done better. They even have it written in policy on how long you are allowed to take bathroom breaks. Yep, even when you work from home.

Policy and Procedures - Can and will change without notice.You are told how to do something, you do it.  A few months later it's wrong and should never be done like that.  And when you ask why or when it was changed. No one can give you a straight answer.  They'll give you the typical 'Apple BS giving you an answer, but not really answering your question' answer (with a smile on their face).  Those that work in Applecare will know exactly what I'm referencing too.  

Final thoughts.  Management loves to "cheerlead" you through this muck of a work environment. They know what we have to go through isn't ideal and outright sucks, but they ignore it and speak to you like everything that is happening to you is good and we should be thankful for what Apple is doing for us. It's borderline "cult like". It's like serving you dog poop on a gold plate with gold utensils, and they try to convince you that it's good for you.