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Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

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281–290 of 359 posts

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#281

As a thought experiment, what if companies are made to pay for commute time? How would that change the labour market? Would they hire local? Provide better transportation? Work with cities to reduce congestion? Encourage more remote work? Decide it's too expensive to hire workers and cut hours? Work towards more inclusive housing?

I had a similar thought, about providing free wi-fi and letting people like lawyers and programmers bill the hours that they work while riding on public transit. This would create more demand. I got this idea from dealing with my patent lawyer. It seemed like 90% of the time when I got him on the phone, he was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. He could have been billing that time for all I know. My other weird ide…

Not every transport mode has two classes. Only intercity trains do, but buses and subways don't.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#282
post #200
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends greatly on your apple retail store location, many of them are fairly tight run little ships, but some (say my local fashion island location) seemingly are huge groups of people milling about - I waited 30+ minutes so that an equivalent of a retail store clerk would let me buy a computer I had no questions about.

I would note that it's likely faster to buy the computer from the website/app while standing in the store, and then ask them to bring it out. They're "more free" to do the pure bringing-stuff-out, because they know they might have to budget 30 mins or more for a complex purchase with lots of hand-holding and transferring and stuff, while a bring-out is always going to be short. And, if you don't have your phone on yo…

I would not feel comfortable putting my credit card details into a display model.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#283

What exactly is meant by having their personal Apple devices searched? Searching a backpack for stolen hardware seems somewhat reasonable (although it doesn’t reflect well on their hiring standards) but what right does Apple, champion of privacy, have to search through their employees devices?

Note that it says "personal Apple devices", not smartphones or laptops in general. I think what is probably meant is that they check whether someone for example swapped their old iPhone with a new one from the shop's inventory (maybe by checking serial number, etc.).

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim already has you covered, it's called shipping with required signature. They can deliver to your home or work.

Amusingly enough I've had that method fail while ordering an iMac a few years ago. I requested delivery-with-signature on a $4k iMac and it got delivered to another house three blocks away. They didn't ask for the signature (though they were supposed to); they just left a $4k computer on the curb. It was marked as delivered. I'm lucky to have an honest neighbor who brought it to my doorstep (no thanks to Apple and th…

Apple's lucky that you have an honest neighbour. The computer wasn't your responsibility since you never signed for it.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#285
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average person though, no? Im not sure even half the people in the 97th percentile having one watch or piece of jewelry worth $50K.

Depending on where you live and what you prioritize. Among the people I know, very few own their apartment or use a car. And a $50k car is not the cheapest either... In the US it might be an average, but here in Europe where the public transportation works well you have to be making a lot of money to have a $50k car be worth it in the city. In my case, it could then be argued that the average person doesn't own a car…

Watches are basically obsolete today. I expect them to gradually drop in value over the next 50 years as older generations die off. Especially mid-tier ones. Top of the top will maintain value because of demand from eccentrics and low-tier ones don't have much value in the first place.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#286

> Employees are supposed to find a manager or security officer to do the searches after they clock out. Employees estimate that waiting for and undergoing the searches can take five to 20 minutes, or, on busiest days, up to 45 minutes. This also seems to be their process for picking up orders at the store. It's pure chaos, and I find it at least somewhat amusing that at least Apple treats their employees and customer…

Does Apple really have a “process” for picking items up? I ordered a maxed out iMac Pro for around $15,000 and waited nearly a month for it to finally arrive at the store. I got a voice mail and an email instructing me to come pick it up. Only upon driving all the way to the store was I finally informed in person that they “accidentally” gave my iMac Pro to the wrong customer an hour ago who had merely ordered a base…

Why are you ordering this to the store and not to your home?

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#287
post #12

"A federal district court judge ruled in favor of Apple, deciding that workers had to prove they not only were restrained from leaving but that there was no way to avoid having personal items searched." So workers that would not have a personal bag would avoid a search? You can take away stuff from the store by hiding it in your clothes, I guess unless you're working naked. How would anyone be able to avoid the searc…

There are some really terrible Federal judges. And they can be there until they die of old age.

I don't know if y'all can't read or you're Republicans. I'm referring to the lower court who decided you could come to work naked.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#288
post #285
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on where you live and what you prioritize. Among the people I know, very few own their apartment or use a car. And a $50k car is not the cheapest either... In the US it might be an average, but here in Europe where the public transportation works well you have to be making a lot of money to have a $50k car be worth it in the city. In my case, it could then be argued that the average person doesn't own a car…

Watches are basically obsolete today. I expect them to gradually drop in value over the next 50 years as older generations die off. Especially mid-tier ones. Top of the top will maintain value because of demand from eccentrics and low-tier ones don't have much value in the first place.

Watches definitely aren't obsolete. Just go look how many people on the street are wearing watches.

Well-made watches from known brands with a heritage keep their prices very well, even during economically difficult times. If you look at a mid-level luxury brand such as Rolex, you can invest $8000 for a watch that has a great track record in keeping its value: https://imgur.com/0XeTVg5 And that's not even a top-level brand. Rolex is considered mid-tier in terms of luxury watches and the Submariner is one of their lower priced models.

I find it hard to believe that you have some kind of special power to predict how such a stable market will suddenly experience a crash. Though I hope you're right, because I'd love to have access to great watches for a lower price.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#289

> Employees are supposed to find a manager or security officer to do the searches after they clock out. Employees estimate that waiting for and undergoing the searches can take five to 20 minutes, or, on busiest days, up to 45 minutes. This also seems to be their process for picking up orders at the store. It's pure chaos, and I find it at least somewhat amusing that at least Apple treats their employees and customer…

Does Apple really have a “process” for picking items up? I ordered a maxed out iMac Pro for around $15,000 and waited nearly a month for it to finally arrive at the store. I got a voice mail and an email instructing me to come pick it up. Only upon driving all the way to the store was I finally informed in person that they “accidentally” gave my iMac Pro to the wrong customer an hour ago who had merely ordered a base…

Had a similar but less dramatic experience happen this last December when I decided to trade in and purchase an iPhone 11. There was a dead pixel on the screen so I return + exchanged it, however Apple quoted me a different price after the exchange. No idea house this happened, but they still let it go through. What takes the cake is when the genius at the pickup line tried to give me two pairs of AirPods as I was leaving the store “you bought these right?” I had to respectfully decline the free AirPods and left wondering at the pre-Christmas chaos that was taking place.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a bodyguard when you buy a new computer, perhaps it's a sign that you are spending a bit too much money on it.

What's the alternative? For the right professions, compute is time is money (software builds, video encoding, 3D rendering, etc.), and not all of them distribute nicely (I've never even seen distcc actually used).

The alternative is to spend less, to share resources between employees, or to rent. You can rent a much more powerful rendering farm in the cloud for less money than a full option Mac pro. Video encoding can be done in good quality and good time on a 200€ smartphone. If you push the settings to the max, you still don't need a 50k€ computer... And for software builds, just take a coffee break whenever you feel like rebuilding everything on your local machine. The company should have build servers too.
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