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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

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Re: My Experience at Apple

#761

Post by derangedHorse »

yanderekko wrote: post #606
jiggawatts wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can take vacations whenever you want, but you can't hire new staff and just let them twist in the wind concurrently with you taking time off. Holidays are planned ahead. Don't hire at the same time. Easy.

On the great hierarchy of potential conflicts that can be caused by taking your vacation on day X instead of Y, missing a new direct report's start date by a couple days is a very minor concern. Particularly at a larger company where a new hire will have to go through a bunch of onboarding busywork and has a buddy. I can understand why this would be bad optics to someone who's insecure and junior, but it really shoul…

It’s not about being insecure and junior, it’s about being a good manager and putting the right tools in place to help your employees succeed. No one — junior, senior, insecure, or secure — wants their time wasted doing nothing. It’s one thing to go on vacation, but it’s another to not put the proper support system in place for the new employee as to not keep them in the dark. That’s just one of the things that differentiate bad/average managers from the best.

Unfortunately this industry is just too polluted with managers like the one referenced in the blog post who end up contributing to bozo explosion

Re: My Experience at Apple

#762

Post by rurp »

mcny wrote: post #415
koonsolo wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation Is this still a thing as a developer in the western world? If any of my managers proposed this, I would laugh, then say "ah wait, you're serious?", and then laugh some more.

What are you supposed to do if your employment contract says you’re exempt (meaning no overtime pay)?

Look for another job. Developers have enough leverage in the job market that there's no need to put up with bad working conditions unless they want to.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#763

Post by simonkafan »

My basic assumption is that most people at the big IT corps either just want to a) make money or b) work on interesting things. I don't think the majority there enjoy torturing colleagues or subordinates (although it certainly can happen). That being said, the story to me sounds entirely or at least partially made up. In this story, everyone at Apple seems to have only the goal of psychologically abusing OP. Especially the passage "the note section of a hidden slide on a deck that she had uploaded and it was an indirect suicide/murder threat" sounds absolutely implausible, why would someone put a death threat in a slide deck which clearly documents said threat?

My serious (and absolutely not mean-spirited) advice to OP: see a psychologist and talk to him about it, especially about all the "hidden signs" you supposedly received from colleagues.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#764

Post by cutemonster »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #722
lodovic wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How can one create a climate where they're on the same side?

And no one is afraid of "losing" and worried about problems that might cause? (Eg getting fired, even if managers say won't happen)

Re: My Experience at Apple

#765

Post by derangedHorse »

Diesel555 wrote: post #619

"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…

Sometimes the risk of losing everything you’ve worked for to end up right back where you care from is worse than just having stayed where you were.

A twist on the Shakespeare quote: It’s not always better to have loved and lost, sometimes people would rather never have loved at all.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#766

Post by mgh2 »

BossingAround wrote: post #715
mgh2 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you are an Apple employee, please send this story to your upper management particularly Tim Cook." I doubt he will care, reflected at how he manages PR when accused of international labor abuses.

> I doubt he will care, reflected at how he manages PR when accused of international labor abuses. Provided the article is now deleted, it seems someone cared, though in a different way :/.

Sad...I wonder why, I hope she gets the courage to speak up long term

Re: My Experience at Apple

#767

Post by cutemonster »

spockz wrote: post #623
neycoda wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internal competition on the same project shows a lack of confidence from management... it literally shows they don't know what to do, and are just throwing spaghetti at the wall, or aren't confident in their skills to get something deployed with what they choose. It's not solid leadership, it's dissonant. It also sets people against each other, creates better-than-you mental heirarchies between equal workers where no…

I disagree that (internal) competition unequivocally leads to better-than-you mindset. If done properly, in an open and sharing mindset – one might call it scientific, with expectations and criteria defined up front and with the projects objectively compared against the criteria, then it will work. I have also this work. It takes effort to come up with criteria and metrics beforehand but that is what makes it differe…

> If done properly

Any guidelines? What to think about

Re: My Experience at Apple

#768

Post by derangedHorse »

idlewords wrote: post #469

My brief advice to anyone writing such a post: start with the most serious accusation you have, and avoid the temptation to add ancillary grievances, however justified, until you have the reader fully engaged and outraged. The way this post structured now, beginning with fairly unspecific complaints about the hiring process, who invited whom to lunch, etc. makes the author come across as a young high-drama individual…

Your point seems valid, but the mom statement is unnecessary as I and many others did want to finish the wall of text about how she was mistreated

Re: My Experience at Apple

#770

Post by derangedHorse »

simonkafan wrote: post #763

My basic assumption is that most people at the big IT corps either just want to a) make money or b) work on interesting things. I don't think the majority there enjoy torturing colleagues or subordinates (although it certainly can happen). That being said, the story to me sounds entirely or at least partially made up. In this story, everyone at Apple seems to have only the goal of psychologically abusing OP. Especial…

You must not be social enough to have met these people, but I can for sure think of people who I knew (but don’t currently work with) who would do these kinds of things. Maybe they didn’t start out to be mean at the start but when the author started commenting about shoddy work and how the team was manipulating data, they probably saw her as trying to ruin a good thing they had going (which would probably threaten all their prospects of career progression). From their perspective they might’ve just saw her criticisms as her maliciously trying to get ahead or as an attempt to showoff her technical superiority by pointing out their mistakes (which may put the manager always correcting typos into perspective as well).
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