I think the majority of us are missing the point. "Good" American jobs are hard to come by. No longer can unskilled retail sales people make a living wage, even at Apple. Glad I work in tech.
Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
41–50 of 69 posts
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#42tl;dr -- retail jobs pay low wages, Apple included.
What I took away from it? Apple is paying market rates for its semi-skilled employees in a high unemployment market. The market is the problem, not the employer.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#43This article starts out with a fallacy that immediately made me stop reading: Jordan Golson sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the Apple Store in Salem, N.H. No. The ~$3M dollars that apple spends on advertising daily ( http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Apple-products-guru-m... ) are what put Jordan Golson in the position of seeing $750,000 worth of purchases be made in front of his cash regis…
Agreed - I would like to suggest that 100% of the 8-10 iPhones, iPod Touches, iMacs, iPads, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs that were purchased by friends, and family (that weren't already using Macs) - were sold by _me_ in conjunction with Apple's great Marketing and track record of supporting their product. Particularly the one Android User and one Blackberry user.
The employee in the Apple store (and I take nothing away from them) - were responsible for taking a credit card number, email address, getting the box from the store room, and putting it in a bag. I even pre-sold applecare for them.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the money Apple puts into engineering and marketing counts for squat if someone goes into an Apple Store and has to deal with salesperson who is unhelpful or not knowledgeable. Best case you end up with an unhappy customer, worst case you loose a sale or a customer for life. The Apple Store isn't Walmart, the people that work there aren't just cashiers. Hang out in the Apple store for 10 minutes and listen to the…
I've come to realise this is a New York thing, but every experience I've had an Apple Stores has been filled with smiley, doltish people who are terrible at honouring appointments on time. I go to the Apple Store when I'm willing to trade sanity for immediacy; otherwise I far prefer ordering online. The Cupertino and Phoenix Apple Stores I've been to were different, but comparing apples to apples (no pun intended) I'…
> I go to the Apple Store when I'm willing to trade sanity for immediacy; otherwise I far prefer ordering online.
I've learned that the Apple Store is not where I want to go for immediacy, either. Unless you are going when it's not filled with people, buying something is a pain. I cannot fathom the need to wait for a "sales" person to buy something specific.
If I want to buy an Apple product, I go someplace else. Apple stores have never been a prompt or efficient shopping experience for me.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#45Oh hell am I going to step into it. Uh, its retail job. No one there creates the products they sell. Better yet, its not a hard sale. I would bet the majority of people entering an Apple store are there to buy something, provided they can afford it. While some could and can make a living off of these jobs I see them as a stepping stone. As in, I would be forever fascinated by how these product I sell and obviously li…
Have you ever worked in retail? I suspect not given your condescending attitude towards the skills retails works need. Exceptional customer service (which is what Apple Stores used to have, I think it's dropped off in recent years) requirers exceptional interpersonal skills, and is not something that anyone can just turn on, it's a skill - sure not one you learn through the traditional education world, but a highly v…
As in all things free-market driven, value is a function of supply and demand. The reality is the supply of people capable working in a retail, direct sales, or service position is sufficiently large in comparison to the companies requiring such employees, that the negotiating position is in the hands of the companies.
There is never any absolute value to any position, nor any value judgements about the people in those positions - there is simply a (dynamic) supply curve, a demand curve, and the intersection thereof.
Tragically - skills play less a role than what one might think. I am constantly embarrassed to discover the salary differential between what I make as a Network Engineer/Technical account manager and what my friends who are particle physics PHD graduates at SLAC make. (If it's not clear, the skill/education required to be a particle physicist exceed that of a network engineering manager. But the network engineering manager makes somewhat more money in the valley.)
Edit: Also - it's important to differentiate skills that are acquired/developed, (I.E. such as understanding the behavior of Muons, or quickly grokking an OSPF schematic) versus those that are simply attributes of being a nice person. I'd suggest that a lot of retail positions can be taught in less than a couple weeks (indeed, the Apple training takes place over two weeks) - whereas other skills take many years to learn.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. If employees want a "cut" of the profits, they can get that cut by buying stock. They're also getting health insurance, 401k.
ESPP won't net you more than pocket money at any company I've ever worked or heard about.
Our ideas of pocket money must differ..One company I worked for, allowed you to buy shares at a 15% discount once every six month..and you got the shares at the lowest price point the shares had been at for the previous 6 months.
I bought as many shares as I was allowed to, and I can assure the money I got from that amounted to a hell of a lot more than pocket money for me.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your points are worth making, but your tone paints you clearly in the fanboi camp. This line is particularly goofy sounding: "I think that the NY Times is just jealous -- after all, Instagram is worth more." You do know that newspaper articles are written by individuals, right? The CEO of the Times probably didn't even have any idea that such an article was being written.
The CEO doesn't necessarily know about each article, but you know the Times doesn't run a hatchet job on a major corporation without it filtering up to the top floor offices. Story lists are circulated among the executives. When I was a photographer for Reuters and Sipa (1996-2002), I had, on occasion, photos that would find their way up to the executive level before they'd be released. I can specifically remember my…
You're reading too much into it. I'm pretty sure it's just run of the mill sensationalism.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#48Most of the people on the floor are kind of wastes of space -- I hate going into the Palo Alto store to buy anything, because the employee rarely actually knows what it is. I asked for "thunderbolt to gigabit ethernet adapter", which is pretty straightforward (and not stocked on the floor, since it's small and thievable I guess). 3 separate employees had no idea what it was, and then one of them decided to ask a manager, who did know. The geniuses are good, but they're not the retail people.
(I would have used the Apple Store app on my phone, but it doesn't work on iOS 6 beta...)
I kind of get the impression most of the Apple employees are there just to sell and "support" iPhones and iPads, not Macs.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#49This article starts out with a fallacy that immediately made me stop reading: Jordan Golson sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the Apple Store in Salem, N.H. No. The ~$3M dollars that apple spends on advertising daily ( http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Apple-products-guru-m... ) are what put Jordan Golson in the position of seeing $750,000 worth of purchases be made in front of his cash regis…
Meta comment: The New York Times has really got a burr up its shorts about Apple these days, what with this piece and its "iEconomy" articles. Yet the NYT's market cap is only $1B:
https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:NYT
The Times wouldn't have attacked Apple like this if Jobs were still alive. For that matter, after the first negative NYT article came out, he might have simply bought the NYT for $1B and pointed it against its traditional rivals. None would be the wiser. This is what Gates did with Slate, and Soros with ThinkProgress. And at Apple's scale, that actually makes sense: better $1B out of pocket than a negative NYT article knocking 1% (nowadays $6B) off your market cap.
After all, the NYT isn't writing exposes on Carlos Slim Helu, who owns an 8% stake.
Re: Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay
#50I sold $350k-$1.2M / month when I worked at CompUSA in college (late 90s). I averaged $10/hr jan-september, about $18 november/december. I was usually ranked 3 out of 100 salespeople. The rest made $6.60/hr. I wasn't being exploited, and neither are the folks at the Apple store.
I take it you're an exceptional salesperson.
But the problem with your argument is that most people aren't exceptional. "Most people" is the very definition of normal. And normal people deserve a living wage, especially if they're working for the most profitable company in history.