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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

721–730 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#721

I feel extremely uncharitable but I don't see any other comments raising this - this reads like a lot like the writings of people who believe they're being 'gangstalked'. Meetings being added/removed to calendars to mess with you, an 'implied' threat being left in the notes section of a hidden slide in a presentation, meeting notes being manipulated to make them look bad, this sort of thing. Maybe I'm just extremely…

I also feel uncharitable bringing this up, but it appears nobody in the comments has yet considered that this could be GPT-3 generated text. I only noticed this as a possiblity once you pointed out the random bolding. Some of the article items that seem suspect:

- fully random bolding

- long, rambling, not entirely coherent (understandable given the subject matter, of course. however, the author also has a PHD?)

- inconsistent naming, e.g. iBuddy

- broad conclusion that doesn't fully match the content

- a nondescript screenshot which doesn't implicate anybody

- separated into 5 segments ("parts"), although the segments aren't narratively meaningful

- a huge list of accusations (of varying degrees of believably) interwoven as though they were more related textually rather than contextually

I hope it's not GPT-3, and that if this is true the victim gets their due justice, but it's worth consideration.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh - I hope that isn’t a prerequisite to greatness? How does someone even get the human and financial capital to run projects like this? I guess your first attempt with the first founding team has to ‘hit.’ Otherwise, how can you afford to triple headcount, management, etc?

If money isn't part of the equation, this may actually be the best approach. During the 2007 financial crisis I worked at a bank that had to develop risk software really fast to comply with regulations and prevent disaster. They had two teams work on the same project and once a winning team emerged, they killed of the other. But the result was used for only a year or two, and replaced by a long term solution which wa…

This is not a bad solution, as long as the teams are on the same side (and know it too). I strongly believe that toxic culture is neither needed nor useful, ever.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#723
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what I read in this article was beyond the pale. Yes, but while I believe it happened just like that, it's too beyond the pale to be representative of Apple at large. Looks like a particularly, close knit toxic team + gaslighting above levels about the new recruit.

>it's too beyond the pale to be representative of Apple at large. Why?

Because of a general understanding of how the world works, how businesses are, how western businesses are, people and so on.

Same way if a told you some politician was sexually assaulting his pages, you woulnd't assume this is representative of congressmen and pages in general...

I don't have recorded minutes of their interactions or other such hard proof.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#724

I dont quite remember the meeting room names in Mathilda 3 over at the Apple on Mathilda Ave, but if the MA03 (in the screenshot) refers to "Mathilda 3", then this story is totally believable. I worked at Apple and it was absolutely horrible. I remember sitting on the train and actually thinking about killing myself. Reasons were many, but mostly I just didn't fit in there, I think. I felt like people there were also…

That’s how people take extra vacation pretty much everywhere. It’s not being a whiny bitch it’s called not working yourself harder than necessary. Go work yourself to death somewhere else and stop shaming people for not being Apple fanboys and working extra hard for Papa Steve.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#725
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed for Blizzard many years ago. One of the first questions they asked is how many all-nighters I had done. Yeah, that was the end for me.

My frank response would be something along the lines of "I'm going to ask you a question, and how you respond will likely determine if I work here, 'Are you self selecting for incompetents or doormats?'" Their response to this question would probably tell you most of what you want to know about working at that company.

To be honest, I appreciated the honesty. Lots of companies would not ask such a question because they would be afraid of scaring people off. Blizzard can afford to be very picky about their candidates, and they were surprisingly blunt about the work environment. If I was single, I probably would not have cared - Blizzard was always one of my dream companies to work at.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#728

"Unfortunately, Apple became the place that I lost feeling of physical and psychological safety and the terror that it inflicted on me has impacted me on such a core level that the painful memories and flashbacks have replaced my dreams and they will hunt me until I am alive." I really don't understand this. I'm not saying this from a perspective that they are wrong, but that I honestly don't get it, please help me u…

> I've had experiences in war torn countries and seen those that are drastically less fortunate than the author.

Author is literally from a war-torn country and would have had to go back if they were fired. This situation was explicitly part-and-parcel of their bullying.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#730
Wah big tech gave it to me dry in the arse and I willingly stayed and endured it. Either sack up and leave or bend over and take it, yee serf. Nothing new in any of this for anyone who’s been in tech and isn’t naive
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