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Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

nytimes.com

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Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#191

Post by ekianjo »

pc86 wrote: post #187
ekianjo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation Doesn't that make communication slower? When I want to buy something, I certainly don't want to start chatting on a tablet to get my point across. It seems like a poor choice of position for that employee.

Then work with a different employee. The additional time in minimal. This is a pretty disgusting attitude, honestly. "I'm not willing to be in this store for 18 minutes instead of 16 minutes, how dare this handicapped person attempt to do their job and assist me!"

It won't take 2 more minutes to chat via text.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#192

Post by nicolas_t »

technothrasher wrote: post #163
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I go to a store, I'm not doing it out of charity for the employees. I'm doing it because I want to buy something, in the most efficient and/or pleasant way possible. I'd much rather fund social programs which just outright support people with disabilities (and I'd like such programs to be more robust and empathetic than they are today). Frankly, if you're not going to be able to do your job well in the first pla…

Huh, I'm exactly the opposite. While I do donate money to social programs, any time I have the opportunity to help others I'd much rather it be with my time and efforts than with simply handing over cash for somebody else to deal with people who need assistance. It is much more fulfilling for me to be able to interact with people I'm helping, and who may help me some day. If this is as simple as taking a few more min…

Agreed, donating money to social programs is helpful but isn't it much better to allow people to have a richer social life and to feel respected? It's not much more work to write on an ipad when asking a deaf employee and it allows him to have a much more fulfilling life.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#193

Post by donarb »

imgabe wrote: post #59
ekianjo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation Doesn't that make communication slower? When I want to buy something, I certainly don't want to start chatting on a tablet to get my point across. It seems like a poor choice of position for that employee.

We don’t always get what we want when we go out into the public and deal with other people. Sometimes I want to zip in and out of the grocery store but there’s an old lady in front of me who wants to argue about an expired coupon and it takes longer than I’d like. Such is life.

That's what self-service stands are for. Let the little old ladies argue about coupons all day long, I can get in and out with my few items quicker.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#194

Post by junon »

prpl wrote: post #185
imgabe wrote: post #8

> Richard Dahan, who is deaf, said he had struggled at his former job at an Apple Store in Maryland for six years because his manager refused to provide a sign-language interpreter for him to communicate with customers, which federal law requires under some circumstances. This just doesn't seem like a reasonable accommodation for a retail job. Your whole job is to communicate with the customers. If you need to hire a…

There’s a lot of weird comments in here by people who don’t know anything about deaf people. 1. Text is a common medium for communicating with the deaf. Younger deaf people in particular will be fine with this 2. VRS is also an option, but it would be awkward in that scenario. VRS is subsidized by the government. VRS predates Facetime but both have been complimentary for deaf people 3. It wouldn’t be a huge leap to e…

Eh. Idk. I know sign language, I've worked with a lot of deaf people throughout my life, and have quite a few deaf friends.

I also worked a few years as a "sales associate" (retail guy) at RadioShack.

I don't think these two mix well in practice. People are moody, in a rush, and don't generally have accessibility or the needs of others in mind when going to a store.

Trying to communicate when you're also trying to convince someone to give you money is paramount. Any hiccups and both sides get frustrated which just sours the whole thing.

This is more of a reflection on people than it is retail, deafness, etc. It's a terrible reality but it's reality.

It's a really, really tricky, touchy and all around uncomfortable problem to solve.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#195

Post by nfRfqX5n »

Bud wrote: post #65

The leader of this small group of "unrest" folks, Cher Scarlett, apparently got hired in April and has worked for 8 other tech companies, according to this story. Color me unimpressed. She starts agitating after a few months of working entirely from home at a highly-paid gig? Did she even have time to get a clue about whether Apple's doing bad things or not? Or does she just kinda flit around from gig to gig looking…

Twitters algo has surfaced some of her stuff on my feed before, much of the same as seen here

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#196

Post by Wowfunhappy »

pc86 wrote: post #187
ekianjo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation Doesn't that make communication slower? When I want to buy something, I certainly don't want to start chatting on a tablet to get my point across. It seems like a poor choice of position for that employee.

Then work with a different employee. The additional time in minimal. This is a pretty disgusting attitude, honestly. "I'm not willing to be in this store for 18 minutes instead of 16 minutes, how dare this handicapped person attempt to do their job and assist me!"

> Then work with a different employee.

But isn't this exactly the customer behavior Richard Dahan was complaining about?

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#197

Post by stickfigure »

reaperducer wrote: post #162
optimiz3 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you ditch Apple if you had a customer service experience and it took 3-5 minutes longer? Fixed it, and maybe. A decline in customer experience provides incentive for Apple to optimize the slower customer service folks out of the picture.

They're human beings.

What if it was 30-50 minutes longer? 3-5 hours longer?

Yes, there are human beings on the other side of our daily transactions that should always be treated with respect. However, these are transactions, not social calls.

I live 10 minutes away from an Ace hardware, 20 minutes away from Home Depot. I almost always go to Ace and pay a few dollars more because when I walk in the door, somebody immediately asks me if they can help me find what I'm looking for. They walk me to the isle and spend a few minutes discussing the various options. If I had to communicate awkwardly through a tablet, I'd honestly just spend a few more minutes driving and save the money.

Sales is a communication-heavy job. It's pretty common already to offer extra pay for bilingual associates. I don't see what the difference is here; nobody would hire me for a job selling in Mandarin, even though I could run Google Translate on a tablet.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#198

Post by ModernMech »

imgabe wrote: post #8

> Richard Dahan, who is deaf, said he had struggled at his former job at an Apple Store in Maryland for six years because his manager refused to provide a sign-language interpreter for him to communicate with customers, which federal law requires under some circumstances. This just doesn't seem like a reasonable accommodation for a retail job. Your whole job is to communicate with the customers. If you need to hire a…

> Why not just hire the interpreter?

The interpreter has a job already - it’s to interpret. If they wanted to be an Apple specialist I think they would have applied for that job. Interpreting and doing the job of an Apple specialist are not the same thing. It’s possible the interpreter would be a terrible Apple specialist.

Why not just hire an interpreter? It’s a win-win-win: a deaf person had a job, an interpreter has a job, deaf customers are better served, hearing customers are better served.

And to top it all off Apple still makes a ton of money! What does an interpreter really in the grand scheme of things when you’re a trillion dollar company like Apple? What’s the cost of an interpreter really to them? I get this idea that corporations are profit maximizing entities, but we’ve really taken it a bit far when we can’t pay a little extra for common decency even when record profits are coming in. Like, maybe if times were tough we’d have a different conversation, but Apple isn’t exactly hurting for cash here. We’re not even asking for decency, just to follow the law. They’ll bend over backwards to help out a thug like Putin when his lawyers send a takedown demand, but to do a solid for their deaf customers and employees… well they can’t be bothered.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#199

Post by leesalminen »

junon wrote: post #194
prpl wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of weird comments in here by people who don’t know anything about deaf people. 1. Text is a common medium for communicating with the deaf. Younger deaf people in particular will be fine with this 2. VRS is also an option, but it would be awkward in that scenario. VRS is subsidized by the government. VRS predates Facetime but both have been complimentary for deaf people 3. It wouldn’t be a huge leap to e…

Eh. Idk. I know sign language, I've worked with a lot of deaf people throughout my life, and have quite a few deaf friends. I also worked a few years as a "sales associate" (retail guy) at RadioShack. I don't think these two mix well in practice. People are moody, in a rush, and don't generally have accessibility or the needs of others in mind when going to a store. Trying to communicate when you're also trying to co…

There’s a blind retail employee at my local Apple Store. He’s been there for years. I knew that it’d end up taking a few extra minutes to buy whatever when working with him, but it never pissed me off. I appreciated how hard he tried and admired the fact that he’d even be willing to work in a loud, crowded Apple store. Plus, he had a really sweet dog with him who was very friendly.

Maybe it would be harder with a deaf person vs. blind. Maybe I’m just an outlier here. Dunno.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#200

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

zozbot234 wrote: post #182
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that is not what we're talking about: " she said Apple had begun trying to reassign her after she complained that the company’s work on the minerals was not, in some cases, leading to meaningful change in some war-torn countries "

Dealing with the minerals supply chain situation was part of her job description. She can't discuss how she's practically being set up for failure? How's that not part of her work conditions?

Her responsibility to deal with the minerals supply chain situation is not open-ended; it is scoped by Apple's plans and policies.

Believing your job should be something different from what your employer has hired you to do doesn't put you in a legally protected position; nor does believing that the extent to which your employer pursues a particular objective is insufficient.

Complaining that your boss doesn't let you do something based on your own interpretation of your job description isn't a "discussion of working conditions" in the NLRA sense - that's absurdly over expansive.

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