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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

201–210 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because after every paragraph you ask yourself, why didn’t they just fire them? They could have done it at any point.

At most big companies firing people is a lengthy process. Also firing someone under 12 months into their first "real" job after graduating looks very bad.

It's hard from an HR perspective and it's something that a lot of managers just don't want to have to deal with. I remember in a former life, a number of problem people--not ill-intentioned but just couldn't do their jobs--who only got forced out as part of one or the other layoffs that happened over the years.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#202

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Unlike others, I actually find this story fairly believable. When I first joined Apple, straight out of college - a good program, top three in the country - I was abused similarly. I joined a team that was on a project behind schedule. Our manager was a brusque, no-nonsense sort of dude. But he clearly had anger problems. On the team were 2 senior engineers, me, and a junior e…

Some extra tidbits that didn't make it in because the edit timer ran out: - Despite the big release and herculean efforts, both of us were paid a fraction of our target bonus. This was the day I decided to move jobs. - I eventually grew some balls and told Apple to (a) pay me 2.5x during overtime (b) hire SREs for this critical service, or (c) go fuck themselves. They chose (c), which worked alright because our servi…

> - The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do your job, but don't kill yourself over it. Work-life balance is king.

This depends a lot on the situation/company. It is definitely true that in many cases it doesn't make sense to work hard. However there are situations where hard work is rewarded. Those are just probably quite rare situations after all.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#203
post #199
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: To the people who downvote me, seriously why ? I can't speak for others but me personally it was because you dismissed the problem then started talking about what would happen in France. Essentially the comment added nothing all said and done Edit: To the downvoters of this , naw I'm kidding. Have at it.

Why isn't his comment about France useful? That's how we improve, by seeing what others do better.

[deleted]

Re: My Experience at Apple

#204
post #199
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: To the people who downvote me, seriously why ? I can't speak for others but me personally it was because you dismissed the problem then started talking about what would happen in France. Essentially the comment added nothing all said and done Edit: To the downvoters of this , naw I'm kidding. Have at it.

Why isn't his comment about France useful? That's how we improve, by seeing what others do better.

The EU has better employee protections than the US, shocker

My future downvotes shall remain my little secret :)

Re: My Experience at Apple

#205
post #5

It’s a long, rambling post with some fairly vague and difficult to falsify accusations. I have no connections to Apple (other than as a consumer), but I could not wade through the article enough to determine if I thought there was an actual smoking gun. I suspect the story would be much more powerful if it were 1/5 as long and stuck to the material facts.

Yeah, I wanted to read it more carefully but it seemed to be a long litany of real or perceived psychological abuse. Maybe I too missed a smoking gun. What I read described an Apple that is completely alien to me. I have never seen or even heard of anything even remotely like this team or the behavior described.

> perceived psychological abuse

Do you call this:

> "You escaped a war zone; it is obvious you have many mental problems."

"perceived psychological abuse"?!? What the heck, the sociopathic person who said that stupid ass thing should have been fired on the spot, apparently he/she still is a manager at Apple.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#206

Just keep this in mind - Anon stories like this needs to be verified by a reputable journal, newspaper, etc. Medium or Twitter doesn’t do the due diligence. Nation states can fabricate this easily. Not saying that is indeed the case, I’m asking people to stop looking at places like Substack and Medium as a source of truth, especially Anon posters. WSJ did so much diligence with the Theranos story. Years. They’ve also…

Apple is the #1 advertiser in the world, when are you going to see corporate news really take on corporations?

Re: My Experience at Apple

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I take everything with a grain of salt. "Trust but verify" --Ronald Reagan There used to be a saying, "Don't believe everything you read on the internet." Somehow it's been forgotten. Not saying the article is false or contrived. I'm saying we just don't know since it's anonymous, and therefore I take it with a grain of salt.

“Trust but verify” - That doesn’t work anymore. Western values are being eroded. Sadly. Sounds alarmist but I feel like the west in next decade is going to have to deal with a lot of “Distrust and ask for verification”.

> That doesn’t work anymore. Western values are being eroded.

If I’m reading the origin of that phrase correctly, it’s actually Russian (not Western) and Reagan borrowed it.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#208
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'd advise people who experience toxic workplaces or think that they are in them to consider whether they themselves are lacking in the ability to assert their own boundaries and act on those assertions when they are broken repeatedly." That's it, blame the victim.

If that is what you took from my post, you’re mistaken. People should not be emotionally abusive. But they are. They attain positions of power. Through reflection you may come to realize they are among people you consider friends or family. You can’t “fix” them, but you can learn how to handle or avoid them. Sometimes, if a person looks inward and into their past they will find a pattern of people who have taken adva…

Because that's exactly what you're saying. It's abusive because you're not in control. When you say there is something the victim can do to stop the abuse you're saying they're in control therefore it's not abusive. It's not abuse if you can say, "no" and it stops.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#209

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Unlike others, I actually find this story fairly believable. When I first joined Apple, straight out of college - a good program, top three in the country - I was abused similarly. I joined a team that was on a project behind schedule. Our manager was a brusque, no-nonsense sort of dude. But he clearly had anger problems. On the team were 2 senior engineers, me, and a junior e…

I find it totally believable that a Muslim would get harrassed given the current toxic political climate.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#210
That meeting in the abandoned part of the building was scheduled because the sr. director wanted sexual favors. The meeting was scheduled by her manager, but later the director shows up out of blue and the manager leaves and says that "it's something very important". Thev director is the spider here: he's a true sociopath, probably admiring the evil already, has plotted the entire thing to make sure nobody would ever believe the female employee, then got a manager to schedule a meeting without him being involved in paper and then showed up, expecting to get the coerced initiative from the employee. If it worked out, the director would later say that he's never been to that abandoned part of the building. The director even has a personal dog with criminal background that he unleashes on the prey.

The best they can do in this situation is a lawsuit from multiple victims, former employees, backed by paper trail (emails, etc.).

Edit. I'd add, that companies like Apple don't care about employee troubles, but they care about bad publicity. Call that director out, make Apple realise that he's a net negative for their PR, let Apple boot him out and destroy his reputation: with such track record and publicity, no company would want to hire him and deal with his reputation. Those who don't recognize the law, should be judged without the law.

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