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I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

roadlesstravelled.me

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Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#71

Post by kyllo »

I had organised a day off recently where all my family were visiting me from interstate. Despite this I had agreed to dial in to one conference call as the audience attending was ‘important’. Well it seems Important but disrespectful, as the audience never even turned up, yet I was still made to ‘dry-run’ the whole meeting from start to finish for an hour and a half as if there was full attendance and interest in what I was saying. So, as the food I had prepared for my family went cold, there I was stuck on the phone role-playing a fake menial meeting to satisfy managements ego.

Oh god. I would have hung up. The concept of a "dry run" for a meeting is insanely offensive and counterproductive. If a meeting needs to be scripted and rehearsed, it does not need to happen.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#73

Post by ndesaulniers »

Apocryphon wrote: post #45

The culture of silence between Apple and the public extends to more than just upcoming products. Has anyone noticed that there aren't as many Apple employees participating in tech conferences, hackathons, public presentations? Even for subjects unrelated to their work? Definitely fewer than Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft employees.

As far as web tech, I don't recall seeing any Safari web evangelists at any conf I've ever been to. Wasn't there a post a month ago about trying to track one down? Someone said one did exist, and that they were only ever seen at WWDC.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#74

Post by spectrum1234 »

gscott wrote: post #33

From reading about Apple I have the feeling innovation comes from the top (or from small special teams) and the rest of the organization is about pulling that innovation together. Which would make endless meetings make sense because instead of innovation you just need organization to push the innovation made by a tiny fraction of the company forward. The positive is just having Apple on your resume you will make land…

Yes they are structure top down.

In contrast Google is more bottoms up / crowdsourced or "Darwinian" as Elon Musk would say. Meetings are more cross functional, shorter, and to the point this way.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#76

Post by borgia »

MrNobody wrote: post #60
Apocryphon wrote: post #45

The culture of silence between Apple and the public extends to more than just upcoming products. Has anyone noticed that there aren't as many Apple employees participating in tech conferences, hackathons, public presentations? Even for subjects unrelated to their work? Definitely fewer than Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft employees.

From my understanding Apple effectively owns your entire output when you're employed full-time (at least as an engineer). At a recent interview I mentioned I like tinkering with code on the side and was told I'd have to give that up and stop contributing to open source. I imagine that extends to participation in the "outside world" at least to some extent. The fact that Apple developers I've spoken to spend their per…

>At a recent interview I mentioned I like tinkering with code on the side and was told I'd have to give that up and stop contributing to open source.

I faced similar in my last company (not with Apple). Now find it very difficult to get working on a side project or similar at home after having not done anything in that regard in a few years.

Ideas I once had to develop are long gone. Bleh.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#77

Post by Zelphyr »

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!

Zappos is one that comes to mind.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#78

Post by cmrdporcupine »

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…

Someone dear to me worked in marketing there. Was basically the same drill, though not as directly abusive because she reported to good people.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#79

Post by cookiecaper »

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!

Zappos may be a candidate for that type of case; their entire value proposition is exceptional customer support. There is no other reason to buy from them -- they aren't the cheapest or the sleekest, but they have the reputation of going above and beyond for their customers. Their motto is "powered by service". This may be more of a marketing lesson than a customer service one, though.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#80

Post by erickt »

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!

Zappos built their brand on high quality customer service: http://www.businessinsider.com/zappos-customer-service-crm-2...
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