That's the great thing about a free market. You are free to do whatever you want. If working at Apple is such a piss-poor experience, and you are certain that your talents are soooo valuable to the world, then don't work at Apple and take your amazing abilities elsewhere. Certainly their must be hundreds of companies just dyyyiiing to get their hands on your unmatched grey matter. So quit bitching and work somewhere else.
Apple's inspirational note to new hires
111–120 of 141 posts
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#112So like... A company bragging about itself in a way to make employees work more without asking to get paid for it? Can't say I've seen anything like that before. How original this makes Apple! Back to real life: every company claims to be best, unique or something like that. Some hollow, BS claim to motivate their employees. But just because they print it on a poster doesn't make it any more real. Apple is heartless…
I'd go further, and say that Apple is significantly worse than many other corporations in our industry, in terms of how they treat their people, how they treat their customers, and how they view the world and the ecosystem in which they operate. When Apple has power, they abuse it. When they don't have power, they fight tooth and nail to obtain it, while playing the underdog card. And, there are corporations in our i…
Bridging on your comment, I can't even imagine how they treat their suppliers, vendors, business partners etc.
The other day I read something about this young Chinese lady who works on iPad's assembly line. She was petrified when some guy showed her the final outcome of her assembly line, a finished iPad. She had never seen one until that moment.
If you had studied a little bit about the history of business administration you might know about Elton Mayo's "Hawthorne case". Well, if you analyse the Chinese girl case according to Mayo's theories, the immediate conclusion you can make is that Apple is a very "dehumanized" company.
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#113Let me tell you an unfortunate truth: Think of everyone you really respect. Really look up to. Every one of them are risk takers. At some point, they jumped in the deep end. Those who play it safe go nowhere. Apple knows that in order to lead, they need those kind of people. If that isn't you, fine. Go work for Sun. Or RIM. Or Nokia. Or Yahoo.
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#114So like... A company bragging about itself in a way to make employees work more without asking to get paid for it? Can't say I've seen anything like that before. How original this makes Apple! Back to real life: every company claims to be best, unique or something like that. Some hollow, BS claim to motivate their employees. But just because they print it on a poster doesn't make it any more real. Apple is heartless…
It didn't read like "bragging" to me so much as being honest about the worst parts of a job, kind of like the "for better or for worse" part of a wedding vow. Occasional unexpected work is a fact of life for roles that oversee mission critical products. It wouldn't surprise me if this was true at Apple, where small teams are responsible for products that tens of millions of people uses. If a showstopping OSX bug pops…
OS X can wait a day. The work/life balance of people who create OS X is far more important than fixing a "showstopping bug". You're not curing cancer or doing anything at all that is actually time sensitive. Apple will still make money if OS X ships a day late.
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#115I don't see anything wrong with Apple doing this. I mean, you have to make new folks feel welcome and like they've made a good decision. Keep in mind though, Apple is a corporation and as one the only thing they care about is profits and the only people they care about is the executive committee. It's just like any other big corp.
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#116nice, but how many of you are ready to sacrifice your life (weekends) for a company's profit. - Curing cancer: yes - Saving lives : yes - Building an outlet for yet spending more money : no As much a I love my work, I won't love it more than my wife, or my future children.
> As much a I love my work, I won't love it more than my wife, or my future children. Steve Jobs clearly did, and wanted people with that level of commitment. Can't fault him for trying to find people willing to give him their lives.
True, but he owned the company. That's a pretty huge difference
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#117I think a lot of the comments here show that there is a large number of people that are pissed off because they work for a company and feel devalued.
I can identify with this statement and Apple trying to reiterate their core values to new staff. Sure you may not hit the mark 100% of the time, but surely they would have trouble retaining staff if they are lying.
I also think that this whole "Profit Margin" bashing needs to stop. Yes they make large margins, no they don't profit share with most of their staff. It's the way almost every business works. If you disagree then I encourage you to start your own company and give it a shot rather then shouting abuse from the sidelines.
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making this material attractive to people who would just as soon work as quants is probably not Apple's goal here. If you don't react favorably, you probably aren't what they want. (I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, just that if money is really all you can think of in a job, some companies are more OK with that and others prefer passion, and it's good that people suited for one kind don't end up at the…
> just that if money is really all you can think of in a job, some companies are more OK with that and others prefer passion, and it's good that people suited for one kind don't end up at the other. You seem to imply it's either passion or compensation which looks like a false dichotomy to me. Lots of people have passion for their work but still they're smart enough to avoid companies who treat the passion like a wea…
I agree. And it seems a bit hypocritical to be coming from a company that expects higher prices for their products because of the work they have put into it. Why should the employees not expect the same for their time?
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#119Honest question: is it really possible to do that sort of work as a cog inside a huge corporation? I'm asking because I'm looking at very likely being gobbled up by such a large corporation ...
Yes, actually.
If you find the right tech company, your work can be very visible, and can be part of a product that will exist for decades.
If you have the right personality, you can also become very visible outside the organisation as well such that people inside and outside will know you.
Re: Apple's inspirational note to new hires
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd go further, and say that Apple is significantly worse than many other corporations in our industry, in terms of how they treat their people, how they treat their customers If they treat their customers so badly, how come they consistently rate at or near the top in customer satisfaction surveys?
The obvious answer is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome However, it's more likely that the customers weigh things differently than we do. They'd rather have something shiny and popular.
If you have an apple store nearby, the warranty service is much nicer than let's say acer for example.