new throwawayI think what this person missed was that the iBuddy was their real manager all along. And once it became clear that the person would not cooperate with the iBuddy, they became the "problem employee" and were railroaded out.
Not justifying the abuse. They should have explained more clearly what was happening or transferred. It's also always more difficult when there are cultural and language barriers; they needed to take a more generous approach and explain things. And instead, they seem to have decided in the first couple days that they weren't going to give this person any slack.
I was hired in similar circumstances. I replaced someone who was fired. I had an "informal" manager, who ghostwrote my reviews and did everything my real manager would. Eventually my real manager was fired and the iBuddy became a manager of a new politically favored team.
It also looks like this person was hired on directly to a secret project. That's a really rough way to start at Apple. That may explain why they didn't give any slack and why they were really cagey with giving them access to project resources. It also sounds like the project was not going well, which also removes room for error.
They must have gotten a bad first impression and that spiraled into a negative feedback loop, since no-one was helping this person into the culture or explain what they were doing wrong. For example, when the real manager got back from vacation, they probably heard bad things from the iBuddy about this person's first couple days. And rather than trying to course correct, the real manager solidified the idea that this person is dangerous to the project and may cause problems for them. Again, this person was being turned into the "troublemaker employee" unnecessarily.
I can also corroborate the clique-iness. Retention is better at Apple than other companies (ie. people work there longer on average than other companies). And my experience is that combined with the secret projects and avoiding the bureaucracy is that you learn who will cooperate to get things done and who wont. And it is critical to your success to only work with people who cooperate and to avoid or even sabotage people who won't.
There were some other faux-pas here and there that definitely didn't help things. The author seems to have reached out to people without consulting the iBuddy or their manager. That's a huge no-no and again explains why they were on the shitlist. Also, they refused to hand over data citing GDPR. That was another bad call. The author was right to bring up GDPR and explain that they were in violation. But they should not have refused to give up the data. They may be correct on the merits, but it's a death sentence to them personally. Once management decides, you shouldn't be surprised if your reviews / employement is impacted for resisting, even if you are morally right.
So again, not excusing the abuse. What happened to the author was terrible and unnecessary. Some Apple specific stuff contributed to it: the high stakes secrecy, clique-iness, and informal power structures. But it sounds like this person also was not familiar with corporate politics and made a lot of faux-pas. With better management, they could have been taught how to navigate Apple's culture.