it wasn’t a surprise to upper management because it was clear that many geniuses wanted to leave. There was a ceiling. It wasn’t a glass ceiling because everyone could see it.
A-fucking-men.
Okay, so here's my tale of woe. I was hired as a part-time Specialist (salesperson). I'm terrible at sales, but I'm a nice guy and I know technology. Also, I'm tall, and people like that for some reason. So I kind of fit the description of the archetypal Apple Retail hire, except when a customer asked me a question I actually knew what I was talking about.
It wasn't long before managers and other employees were sending the most bizarre, detailed, or otherwise highly technical questions in my direction, as any Geniuses on the clock already had their hands full. I would proceed to spend as long as possible chopping it up with a fellow geek, all the while not selling anything. This soon got the attention of my store's lead creative, who sent me off to a two day training session, after which I had three dedicated days a week wherein I did nothing but One-to-One training sessions.
It was more interesting than sales, but I was never promoted to Creative, nor did I receive any sort of pay raise. In fact, I couldn't even get management to officially promote me to full-time, despite the fact that I was consistently being scheduled 36-40 hours a week (occasionally they'd drop in a 29 hour week to absolve themselves of any legal obligation to promote me). Multiple calls to HR were met with insistence that "those decisions are made at a store level." (Eventually I adjusted my availability such that they couldn't schedule me more than 36 hours and I had Thu-Fri-Sat off every week.)
All the while, the internal training program for Geniuses and Creatives was effectively frozen. I would discover why when they eventually introduced a new role between Specialist and Genius/Creative, called "Family Room Specialist." An FRS splits their time between 1to1 training, Genius Bar shifts focusing on small device (iPod/iPhone/iPad) triage and repair, and basic repairs/RAM upgrades/data transfers in the back.
There were employees at every Apple store who had been doing all these jobs for years. Most of them had been doing them as Specialists, in my case for about a year and a half, in other cases I was familiar with as long as five years. When the FRS role was conceived, management held a hard line that a "promotion" to FRS was in fact a lateral move—no raise, no negotiation. I was in the second group of FRS hires at my store, all of us had been doing the same shit with a different title for some time already. All of us were passed over on the next round of Genius/Creative promotions. Conversations with management went nowhere, as they had little understanding of what our jobs even required, and as the article indicates, there was always a line of warm bodies around the block ready to enlist.
Even if I'd been promoted to Genius, I stood to make as little as half what the highest paid Genius at the time, another Apple lifer, was making. And that's really where the trail ends for many Apple employees, and I don't just mean internally. Most skills that make you a great Apple employee are totally non-transferable, due to the company's priorities (although noble) being so inconsistent with much of the retail world. I hear all this about how Apple's a great thing to have on your resume, but it hasn't done me a whole hell of a lot of good.
I was happy to hear earlier this week that some of my friends might be getting much-deserved raises. I'm also happy that I got the hell out of there when I did, and couldn't imagine working there again. I was a PC geek before switching to a Mac when I went to college, and I was deep into Mac nerdery well before I started working for Apple; I had my own reasons for being there. However, some other folks there hit the kool aid pretty damn hard, which can be an annoyance, particularly when they're technical dunces. As previously stated, unless your career aspirations amount to working at the Genius Bar or teaching old people how to use the Google for $15 an hour, there isn't much of a point to working at Apple for any extended period of time.
Most critically, many of the customers are absolutely fucking reprehensible. Let me repeat that, in slightly different terms: If you walk into an Apple Store, act as if the technician you're speaking to caused the problem you're having with your iPhone (Hint: Generally speaking, you're the problem.), and give the impression that you believe no one else in the building has a problem that matters—especially if you behave aggressively and/or condescendingly, issue ultimatums, throw adult tantrums, threaten legal action, or demand free replacements/upgrades you don't deserve—allow me to recommend, on behalf of all Apple Retail employees, past and present, who are restricted from speaking for themselves, that you EAT YOUR OWN ASSHOLES, YOU DESPICABLE CUNTS.
-From the article:
it wasn’t a surprise to upper management because it was clear that many geniuses wanted to leave. There was a ceiling. It wasn’t a glass ceiling because everyone could see it.
A-fucking-men.
Okay, so here's my tale of woe. I was hired as a part-time Specialist (salesperson). I'm terrible at sales, but I'm a nice guy and I know technology. Also, I'm tall, and people like that for some reason. So I kind of fit the description of the archetypal Apple Retail hire, except when a customer asked me a question I actually knew what I was talking about.
It wasn't long before managers and other employees were sending the most bizarre, detailed, or otherwise highly technical questions in my direction, as any Geniuses on the clock already had their hands full. I would proceed to spend as long as possible chopping it up with a fellow geek, all the while not selling anything. This soon got the attention of my store's lead creative, who sent me off to a two day training session, after which I had three dedicated days a week wherein I did nothing but One-to-One training sessions.
It was more interesting than sales, but I was never promoted to Creative, nor did I receive any sort of pay raise. In fact, I couldn't even get management to officially promote me to full-time, despite the fact that I was consistently being scheduled 36-40 hours a week (occasionally they'd drop in a 29 hour week to absolve themselves of any legal obligation to promote me). Multiple calls to HR were met with insistence that "those decisions are made at a store level." (Eventually I adjusted my availability such that they couldn't schedule me more than 36 hours and I had Thu-Fri-Sat off every week.)
All the while, the internal training program for Geniuses and Creatives was effectively frozen. I would discover why when they eventually introduced a new role between Specialist and Genius/Creative, called "Family Room Specialist." An FRS splits their time between 1to1 training, Genius Bar shifts focusing on small device (iPod/iPhone/iPad) triage and repair, and basic repairs/RAM upgrades/data transfers in the back.
There were employees at every Apple store who had been doing all these jobs for years. Most of them had been doing them as Specialists, in my case for about a year and a half, in other cases I was familiar with as long as five years. When the FRS role was conceived, management held a hard line that a "promotion" to FRS was in fact a lateral move—no raise, no negotiation. I was in the second group of FRS hires at my store, all of us had been doing the same shit with a different title for some time already. All of us were passed over on the next round of Genius/Creative promotions. Conversations with management went nowhere, as they had little understanding of what our jobs even required, and as the article indicates, there was always a line of warm bodies around the block ready to enlist.
Even if I'd been promoted to Genius, I stood to make as little as half what the highest paid Genius at the time, another Apple lifer, was making. And that's really where the trail ends for many Apple employees, and I don't just mean internally. Most skills that make you a great Apple employee are totally non-transferable, due to the company's priorities (although noble) being so inconsistent with much of the retail world. I hear all this about how Apple's a great thing to have on your resume, but it hasn't done me a whole hell of a lot of good.
I was happy to hear earlier this week that some of my friends might be getting much-deserved raises. I'm also happy that I got the hell out of there when I did, and couldn't imagine working there again. I was a PC geek before switching to a Mac when I went to college, and I was deep into Mac nerdery well before I started working for Apple; I had my own reasons for being there. However, some other folks there hit the kool aid pretty damn hard, which can be an annoyance, particularly when they're technical dunces. As previously stated, unless your career aspirations amount to working at the Genius Bar or teaching old people how to use the Google for $15 an hour, there isn't much of a point to working at Apple for any extended period of time.
Most critically, many of the customers are absolutely fucking reprehensible. Let me repeat that, in slightly different terms: If you walk into an Apple Store, act as if the technician you're speaking to caused the problem you're having with your iPhone (Hint: Generally speaking, you're the problem.), and give the impression that you believe no one else in the building has a problem that matters—especially if you behave aggressively and/or condescendingly, issue ultimatums, throw adult tantrums, threaten legal action, or demand free replacements/upgrades you don't deserve—allow me to recommend, on behalf of all Apple Retail employees, past and present, who are restricted from speaking for themselves, that you EAT YOUR OWN ASSHOLES, YOU DESPICABLE CUNTS.