I Quit: What really goes on at Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#201

Post by storgendibal » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #137

javawizard wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about future time off? I'd happily work 60 hour weeks for $1,000,000/year, then retire after 5 years.

Those type of jobs do exist. People working insane hours for about 5 years then cashing out. A lot of people say they would do it, but I wonder how many would survive that type of grind.

Actually, it gets better. That's the dirty little secret that I never knew about. Investment banking used to have insane hours (100+ basically on call all the time). The idea was that after 4-5 years you leave for a buy-side gig (hedge funds, private equity) that pay you the same or more ($1-5M in your early to mid-30s) but with more reasonable hours. This is why the smartest CS/Math/EE/Physics grads from MIT etc went to Wall Street in the 2000s.

I wish I knew then what I know now :) I put in 100+ hours a week for a tech firm because interesting/love what I do/blah. And all I have to show for it is stock that increased a little bit.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#202

Post by noobermin » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

jklontz wrote: post #165

codezero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you, by chance, have a list of those exceptional cases? I'd love to learn more! edit: thanks everyone for these replies they're great, keep them coming!

GitHub: I've emailed their support desk a half dozen times over the years, and each time received a response from an engineer within minutes containing an accurate and precise answer to my question.

No kidding, I had a similar experience with them, although I only had to contact them once. It was, however, in the middle of the night because it was a school break and I was up. I was surprised to get a reply from them past midnight (and at least very late in PT).

Another issue about customer support is that it isn't glamorous and usually not encountered by the typical customer since they usually handle issues and exceptions rather than the visible product. When someone mentions a company, pictures of their product, their service, etc come to mind before a customer service experience, unless it is a negative one. Had a good experience? It's usually an, "Oh yeah..." moment, at the back of your head. Psychologically, customers don't use these positive experiences to judge a company. If they have a negative experience, then that company is the worst in the world...

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#203

Post by raspasov » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

richthegeek wrote: post #190

raspasov wrote: post #30

I wonder how many people the author has really interacted with? Even if it was 100 individuals (which is probably unlikely) that's still 5000 employees?) of the total organization. Basically a rounding error. It's very hard to make conclusions for the whole company from such a small sample. That borders discrimination/racism thinking. Not in any way trying to say that he had a pleasant experience or that his manageme…

The author is writing about his experience of 2 years of working there, and it's corroborated by others in this forum... and your problem is that he didn't verify that ALL of Apples management are arseholes? He isn't talking about ALL of them. He's talking about the ones he worked with, in the department he worked for. Get your head out of your arse...

Thank you for your enlightened recommendation, I'll take it into consideration.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#204

Post by wpietri » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #112

codezero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you, by chance, have a list of those exceptional cases? I'd love to learn more! edit: thanks everyone for these replies they're great, keep them coming!

Sonic.net, in the ISP market. They spend quite a bit on customer support, and use it, where they can (locally, mostly) as a feature. Back in the day when they were reselling AT&T DSL (which they are doing again, I hear), it was a big bonus to get AT&T DSL at the same price, but not have to deal with AT&T almost ever. Let a third party deal with that and provide better service for the same cost. Win. Full Disclosure:…

I've never worked at Sonic, but I'll give you a hearty amen as a customer for several years. When I try to get friends to switch from Comcast, all I hear is, "But it costs more!" To which I say, "However, it actually works. And when it doesn't, you can talk to somebody smart." Not having to fuck around is worth cash money to me.

Customer service isn't a cost center. It's a value creator.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#205

Post by LordKano » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

archagon wrote: post #69

In "Becoming Steve Jobs", Tim Cook says the following in regards to Apple's collusion scandal: "I know where Steve's head was. He wasn't doing anything to hold down salaries; it never came up. He had a simple objective: if we were working together on something, like with Intel, where we threw everything in the middle of the table and said, 'let's convert the Mac to the Intel processor', well, when we did that, we did…

Several years ago, I was contacting by a recruiting firm about a job opening. I was interested, I fit the description of the person for whom they were looking and I wanted to proceed.

The recruiter was going off an old copy of my resume that they found online and was unaware that I had a different employer. When I disclosed this, they immediately refused to go any further in the process because they were worried that if they helped me to leave then my employer wouldn't use them to fill future openings.

I told them to lose my number. Since that time, when one of my friends is looking for work in tech, I steer them away from this particular recruiting firm (I have no desire to blast them here) because of my experience with them.

This happened in the Pittsburgh area, I can only imagine what it was like out there on the left coast.

Employees do not belong to their employers, I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for some people to grasp.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#206

Post by swish41 » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

I would never hire this guy.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#207

Post by azinman2 » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

codezero wrote: post #57

DaFranker wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An adept representation of a limited sample of the issues surrounding customer support and similar departments. The problem is that it doesn't have to be like this. There are exceptional cases where customer support is not like this. Many of them have gained considerable benefit from investing in their customer support. One source of difficulty is that evaluation of those benefits requires very complicated (for an av…

Do you, by chance, have a list of those exceptional cases? I'd love to learn more! edit: thanks everyone for these replies they're great, keep them coming!

311 in San Francisco. Ok it's not a company, but damn for city government 311 has impressed me every time I call. People are knowledgable, available at odd hours, and if they can't help you the follow throughs have actually come through!

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#208

Post by api » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:43 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #199

api wrote: post #120

Apple has built one of the most successful businesses in the world on mostly one thing: design. (And user experience, which is design more broadly applied.) Undortunately, it seems to me that good design requires totalitarianism. Apple's products are comparatively coherent, clean, unified, and aesthetically pleasing. This is achieved via a culture of totalitarianism that extends all the way down to the device. OSX ha…

Did you read the article?

Yes. I think you missed my point.

They are the kings of design and UX. It disturbs me that their culture is this totalitarian and dysfunctional, but it doesn't surprise me in the least.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#209

Post by 2close4comfort » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

It is a shame that you finally reach a key point in your career only to find that they are not as great as they are made out to be. But it is refreshing to see that they were able to realize where they were and that it was not for them. I would think that if we ever make it to the point where people won't make these obscene sacrifices to work for (insert random SV co. name here) it might be a better place...but lets face that will never happen.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#210

Post by shostack » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #24

But... the author worked in customer support, managing agents. Customer support in any company is like this: it's full of bobblehead managers who make work to justify their own jobs. It's a cost center, and cost centers are where you put executives who are capable, but not exceptional. This is why OP has stories about how firing people was considered heroic -- when you work in a cost center, the only thing the busine…

You are painting with an overly broad brush.

Where I work, our Support Heroes (yes, we call them Heroes because the lengths they go to for our customers are heroic) are one of the main reasons so many of our customers love us and stick with us so long.

You've probably heard that it can cost ~5x more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one. An exceptional Customer Support team is your front line in fighting churn, and are an invaluable asset, not a liability. They can also be critical to making sure your product and engineering teams are up-to-date on everything they need to grow a successful product that your customers want to pay for.

Unfortunately, many companies simply don't realize this or don't care because they have a captive market (for now). I would encourage you to research more about how customer support can be done "right" vs. "wrong." If customer support is a "cost center" for you, you're doing it wrong.