Apple reviews

The worst management I have ever seen. I have over 10 years of employment history in the IT industry and I never had any grieviences with management until joining this particular Apple Retail Store. Very negative and very condesending attitude from some managers in particular here at this store. Management offer ZERO support and are very quick to threaten employees with formal warnings of "disiplinary action" for those of us that dont meet the targets of serving at the minimum of 6 customers per hour for technical support at the Genius Bar. Good technical ability and customer service is not valued or appreciated by management. They only care about how many customers we can see per day. We are lucky to have enough time to even ask a customer their name here. There are NO breaks here. Just a lunch break midway through a 9 hour shift. There is ONE toilet that serves the entire store of approx 140 employees!!!! If any of the Genuis bar staff are more than 30 seconds away from the Genius Bar, management immediately start hounding then over the instore radios asking "Anybody have eyes on...(employee name)" Anyone who dares to stand up to or to question management here is bullied and hounded until they finally leave the store (and MANY end up leaving this particular store) Working conditions: The is virtually NO air conditioning at this store. The heat is unbearable working here, even in winter. Wearing apple shirts is mandatory but each employee is given just 2 t-shirts (1 long sleeve and 1 short sleeve) This is not sufficient as we need to change/wash these daily due to all the perspiration in the unbearable heat in this store. Several coworkers here also use bully tactics. They are 2 faced and like to send nasty emails to management with "feedback" on new employees in particular. The only company i have worked in where it is "mandatory" to attend "out of store social events" These occur several times per year and any employees who dont attend receive an "attendance occurance" (its classed as being the same as calling in sick due to illness). We are expected to attend these even if they are scheduled on our day off.... Overall, this store is by FAR the worst employment I have ever had in more than 15 years of work experience, including over a decade in the IT industry. It was so unbearable that I couldnt endure it any longer and resigned.

CHANGES, CHANGES AND MORE CHANGES Things change all the time as with any business, however, with Apple, some of their changes can affect your overall position and pay. For example, you can be hired as a Chat Advisor, but if the need permits, you'll end up on the phones. Another example is, you can be working on night shift, but then end up on day shift if the need permits. Nothing is set in stone. You can be moved around or changed to go somewhere else at any moment. Apple does not care how it affects you. ONGOING TRAINING WITH NO PAY INCREASES You will get hired for one thing.. but you will be crossed trained for everything else. They're goal is to have all Advisors knowledgeable about all products. They want everyone to be able to float around and provide support anywhere needed. I had been working two months on my own and my stats were horrible. I was still trying to get familiar with what I was trained to do. However, despite my lack of knowledge and ongoing horrible stats which clearly showed I was not ready to take on new products, they trained me on two other products within a month of each other. I did not receive a pay increase. I was totally stressed out and was about to quit several times. I expressed my anxiety to my manager but they were not able to assist me. MANAGERS ARE PUPPETS I have nothing bad to say about managers other than I feel so sorry for them. You can tell they really want to do something different other than what their superiors are advising them to do. There is ALOT of pressure on them. Their managers are pressing them to get this done by this date with each member on their team. Most of the time when you take a problem to them, they will not hear you out. They will only make excuses as to why something is the way it is. I really do believe that is how they're trained. So I don't blame them. Don't expect your manager to be able to assist you with much. They are not trained to do that. They are trained to protect the brand - which ultimately means, if its not affecting the customer, they really do not care. The only thing they are concerned about is your stats. Anything outside of that they really don't care about. YOU WILL DREAD LAUNCHES Launches are suppose to be a exciting time, but if the customers you support are directly affected by the launches, you will eventually hate them. I hate whenever Apple launches anything new. Although they test and test and test the product/software, it never works straight out of the box. Apple is a industry giant, but when it comes to product releases, I have yet to experience one that went smooth. Customers go absolutely nuts. Business owners scream at you, curse you and all kinds of things. Its terrible! iTunes and other non-technical departments do not have to deal with launches. STATS WILL KILL YOU I really don't want to get much into this, but I will say this: It is very hard to have good stats. A customer can chat in, you help them, chat back in and the next person don't help them - the customer gets YOUR survey and mark it negatively based on what the other Advisor did. The customer can chat with you, you send them to the Apple Store, they have a bad experience at the store.. but then use the survey from their interaction with YOU and complain about their store experience. Yes, you can get penalized for what someone else did. I understand how this could happen, but there should be a way for the managers to correct this. The reason this is so important is because this affects promotions, salaries, EVERYTHING!! Currently there is no way to move a survey to the correct person that the customer is complaining about. If its your survey then its your negative mark even if the customer was not complaining about you. THE STUCK SYNDROME Because Apple offers such a good pay and good benefits/perks, if you decide that you hate working for Apple, but you don't have a degree or experience to be able to leave the company and find a job that will pay you the same, you'll be stuck. This is exactly what has happened to me. Since working for Apple, I have moved and purchased a car. I thought this was my dream job and that I would retire from here one day. Now I wish I had not purchased anything or moved. That way, I could have at least found another job - still moved and purchased a car based on that income. When it comes to Apple, please give yourself at least 6 months to a year before making any major life-changing decisions. This will give you enough time to decide if this is a place you can tolerate or even thrive in. For me, it isn't. I'm job hunting as I work.