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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Working At The Apple Store Is A Real Nightmare

apple store

The bright, friendly facade of the Apple store hides some weird stuff, according to current and former employees. Porn-stuffed laptops, positivity police, and an anti-gossip gestapo: Welcome to the real Apple Store.

After the Wall Street Journal published an account of Apple's retail culture that was as sterile and cheery as Apple Stores themselves, we asked insiders to send us more colorful details about hawking Steve Jobs' pricey chunks of metal. And Apple Store employees had some tales to tell. Here's a selection.

Apple employees are banned from saying "unfortunately" when delivering bad news to a customer, urged instead to replace it with the more positive "as it turns out." And management apparently takes the ban seriously: One former Apple employee tells us that his coworker was put under a 90-day probationary period because he said "unfortunately" too much at the Genius Bar.

As it turns out, "unfortunately" is just one of a number of "stop words" that are not supposed to pass an Apple Store employee's lips. One Apple Store employee, who was fired in 2009 after two years, writes:

There was a whole class we took about things not to say, and what to say instead. One of my favorites was to resist the urge to say "That's stupid" or "That wasn't smart" and replace it with "That's not recommended" - For example, you say "I took my iPod swimming and now it don't work" I say "Ah, that's not recommended" when I mean "That was really stupid".

Also, problems aren't "problems"—they're "issues."

The linguistic whitewashing extends to relations between management and employees. One former employee who worked at an Apple store in New York City last summer says:

Managers were instructed to use specific buzz words and phrases when speaking to us. For example, "I'll reach out to you" was a good one. I would often get "reached out to" to attend mandatory store meetings. Even better was the phrase "what questions do you have," instead of "do you have any questions." They use the former because it's supposed to sound more open and welcome to questions. I just thought it sounded scripted. They used it a lot in the training program- I called them out on it and got a lecture on how to communicate with others.

Given some of the crazy bullshit employees have to deal with from their customers, we'd imagine it must be hard to keep up the act. An Apple Store employee of two years who worked as a tech support specialist and quit within the last two months writes:

The amount of porn I saw in data transfers blew my mind. Once a guy got a detractor because a customer blamed US for the fact that, when our tools transferred the data of their old computer over and put photos in iPhoto, there were hoards of gay pornography brought over. She couldn't possibly believe that maybe it was her 70-year old husband's doing. Yeah, because we put porn on your shit for fun, ma'am. No, I saw people get fired just for LOOKING in the photo albums of customer's computers to verify that, yes, the pictures had transferred. Not even trying to actually get into someone's personal stuff, just doing our job and making sure nothing had failed to transfer (because customers got angry if anything was missing).

But even when faced with vomit-soaked iPhones and cockroach-infected iMacs (both of which one Genius says he dealt with), Apple Geniuses must please the customer above all, or face the dreaded "detractor". The same employee writes:

Apple tracks what's called "promoters" and "detractors" and "passives." That receipt we e-mail you when you buy something? You can give us feedback from that e-mail… the system e-mails customers who have had appointments with us, and asks them for their feedback. Basically they are asked a few questions, but the one that comes back to us is "overall satisfaction." Apple expects a 9 or 10 from each interaction. If you get a 7 or 8 that's bad, it's a passive. A detractor automatically means a talk with management. This is another thing that was used to deny promotions and raises, or fire people. The worst thing? It's totally arbitrary. I had customers who loved me and would thank me for my work (because I treated them with respect) and then would give me a 6 because someone else misinformed them about something on a different, previous visit.

Trash-talking problem customers in the break room is a cherished retail tradition. But if Apple Store employees complain to their coworkers, they might get ratted out. "Employees are given no outlet to vent about such a high stress job," writes a former employee who was just fired (for planking!):

If you speak ill of a customer interaction or of a coworker and any employee overhears you, depending on how much kool-aid they've had to drink, you'll likely be reported to your supervisor. I can't count the number of times my coworkers and I have been pulled into the manager's office to talk about why we're so negative and what we're going to do to correct that.

Apple Workers Almost every current or ex-employee who emailed us they were worried about blowback from a secrecy-obsessed Apple and wanted to remain anonymous. (Many mentioned still-active Non-Disclosure Agreements.) According to a number of employees, Apple employees a team to scour Apple-related message boards and websites for signs of any current or former employees gossiping. One referred, fearfully, to Apple's "team of lawyers and data miners"; another called them "forensic internetters." It's all very Church of Scientology.

Not everyone who emailed us had horror stories to share. Writes one current, happy Apple Store employee:

All these employees that complain just have shitty managers. I love my store and have absolutely no problems there. My wage is fare for being a technician in a retail store of a mall. My hours usually stink but again, I work retail.

I've been certified by apple for mobile and hardware repair, FOR FREE. Flown to Cupertino for free and given a $100/day food stipend. Who's going to complain about that? My managers are cool and never bother me.

Based on what we heard, the Apple Store seems like a great place to work if you are capable of stowing your ill will, cynicism, frustration and impatience—i.e. humanity—into a little box at the start of each work day and fawn over a stream of idiotic customers without complaint. No wonder people like shopping at the Apple Store so much.

This post originally appeared at Gawker.

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Working At The Apple Store Is A Real Nightmare

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Friday, November 19, 2010

My Nightmare Interviews With Google (GOOG)

Editor's note: Google is on a hiring binge! The company says it plans to hire 2,100 new employees ASAP. Because that means a TON of job interviews, we thought it would be useful to republish this story, first published late last year.

Google came to Syracuse’s campus to recruit new graduates when I was a senior. I attended the information session and learned which jobs I could qualify for. I created a fancy cover letter and resume, crossed my fingers and e-mailed them my documents. One week later I had an email in my inbox from Google.

Google wanted to interview me! Forbes’ #1 company to work for was interested in speaking with me about an Associate Product Marketing Manager position in Mountain View, California. I called everyone I could think of, ecstatic and day-dreaming that my job hunt might end quickly and painlessly with me surfing during lunch breaks at the Googleplex.

Bonus: 15 Google Interview Questions That Will Make You Feel Stupid

Everyone says your GPA doesn’t matter when you’re finding a job—those people obviously never applied to Google. My 3.6 suddenly seemed inferior. Google also wanted to know if I had received any job offers. They wanted to know who was recruiting me and how far along I was in my job search. Talk about salt on an open wound to a college senior. Sad and dejected, I ticked off the “No” [no one wants me] and “Yes” [I’m still unemployed] boxes. I should have realized then that this was shaping up to be a grueling interview process, but I was too excited to pay much notice.

To prepare for my two back-to-back conference calls, I googled Google and learned their history, products, current news, founders, locations, business models, competitors, AdWords, investors and mottos. My heart had never been in anything more and I was prepared for any curve ball they could throw. I practiced interviewing with friends and felt confident when my cell rang at 4:00pm sharp.

A young man was on the other line sounding just as nervous as I felt. The first five minutes of the allotted 30 were small talk. We went over my resume, previous internships and my career goals. My interviewer, Oliver, nervously cleared his throat between awkward silences during which he recorded my responses. I was on top of my game.

About ten minutes in, Oliver turned the tables. “I’m going to ask you a few questions that may sound strange,” he premised. I paused. Is there really any good response to a comment like that? He seemed to read my mind because he elaborated: “These questions are meant to test your analytical thinking.” Oh no. He was about to ask me the famous, ridiculously impossible Google questions I had been reading about online.

If you’ve never interviewed with the Internet giant, you may have never heard the types of questions they ask their interviewees. The searches I had done warned me that Google might inquire how much I’d pay someone to wash all of the windows in Seattle or what I’d do if I was shrunk to the size of a nickel and placed in a blender with churning blades.

“I want you to estimate,” Oliver began, “how much money you think Google makes daily from Gmail ads.” Oh. My. GOSH. Was he serious? The answer depended on so many different factors, none of which I had any clue how to guesstimate.

“Um, you mean a hard number? Maybe…$70,000?” Oliver’s hearty laugh told me my response was foolish. “Wait, can you just totally ignore that response? Scratch it out of your notes and pretend I never said that?”

“Don’t worry,” he mused, “I already did. You don’t have to give me an exact number, just tell me how you would figure out the answer.”

“Ok,” I began and I regurgitated everything I had learned about AdWords. “Google places four ads per e-mail opened in Gmail. Advertisers get to pick their click-through rates, which can be as little as $0.05, and they can set a maximum daily charge, which can be $5. The amount of money Google would make in a day would depend on the number of Gmail users, the number of e-mails those users receive and open per day, the number of advertisements they click on, and the rates the advertisers are charged.”

This answer wasn’t good enough. Now I was asked for an exact amount of revenue. “Say each G-mail user opens seven new e-mails a day. They would see 28 ads. If they click on ¼ of those ads, then only seven ads are clicked. If all advertisers are charged $0.05 per clicked ad, then the amount of revenue would be whatever $0.05 x 7 ads x the number of G-mail users is. Does that make any sense at all?”

“Kind of.” Oliver sounded confused. “You lost me at the ‘only clicking on ¼ of the ads’ comment. Let’s move on.”

The interview ended shortly afterward. Oliver politely indicated that HR would contact me again in a few weeks and he wished me good luck. My confidence was slightly bruised but I felt that, overall, I handled the interview well enough. I was left with 15 minutes to prepare for my next phone call, all of which I used to regain composure and review what I could have done better.

I thought Oliver was intimidating; the woman I spoke with next put him to shame. I gathered from Anna’s cold greeting that she did not have much time for me. We got right down to business. “Name a piece of technology you’ve read about recently.”

“Ok, today I was reading about Nike and Apple working together to make a shoe with a chip in it that helps you run in time with your music.”

“Now tell me your own creative execution for an ad for that product.”

My mind swirled as I pulled some crazy concoction out of my ass. “Well, Nike is known for having inspirational ads with little copy. I guess I would have a person running in Nike shoes, listening to their I-Pod, looking exhausted. The music would then pick up and each stride would coincide with the beat. The runner would get a second wind, reach their goal, and the “Just Do It” line would appear on the screen above an I-pod with a Nike swoosh background.”

She laughed a little before continuing which I took as an encouraging sign. “Now I’m going to ask you math problems.” Math?! I hadn’t taken a math course since freshman year of college. I was in trouble.

“Say an advertiser makes $0.10 every time someone clicks on their ad. Only 20% of people who visit the site click on their ad. How many people need to visit the site for the advertiser to make $20?” I froze. The problem sounded easy but I didn’t want to cause an awkward silence trying to solve it.

“Um…well, ok. So, 20 out of 100 people click on the ad. Every ten clicks make one dollar…and you need 20 of them…” That’s as far as I got before I resorted to guessing answers, none of which were right. I was panicking and I couldn’t do a thing about it. My nerves were taking over. Anna could sense this and began to give me hints. None of them helped my frazzled brain.

After five painful minutes the annoyed interviewer gave me the answer. “100 people make two dollars, and two times ten is twenty. The answer is 100 people times 10 which is 1,000 people.” She made it sound so easy; I felt like a moron. As if she enjoyed my misery, she immediately fired off another math problem.

“Estimate the number of students who are college seniors, attend four-year schools, and graduate with a job in the United States every year.” This time I remained poised.

“There are about 300 million people in the nation” I began. “Let’s say 10 million of those are college students at four year schools. Only ¼ of those 10 million are seniors, so that would be roughly 2-3 million. If half of those students graduate with jobs, you’re looking at about 1.5 million kids.”

“Would you say that number seems high, low, or just about right?”

“I would say it sounds low, but maybe that’s because I’m going through the job-search process and I’m wishing the number was higher.”

I didn’t even get a sympathetic laugh. “That’s all. Good luck with your job search.” The phone clicked-- I was stunned. The abrupt sign-off was a clear indication that I wouldn’t be considered for round 2. Interviewing can be demoralizing, and that’s just how I felt as I sat with my cell in my hand, vowing to switch to Yahoo for life.