My Experience at Apple

Re:My Experience at Apple by ineedasername on Friday January 01, 2021 @02:03PM (#25605714)

You can put just about any company in the "Apple" role here. A bad manager anywhere can cause a workgroup to turn toxic. I've seen it happen literally everywhere I've ever worked, though luckily only 1st hand at one location. (Actually there was one exception: working at a Barnes & Noble during college. I'd heard horror stories about other locations while I was there, but the store I worked at was run by an extremely good manager who cared for her employees and fostered that attitude in her assistant managers as well. It was also the most profitable store in the region, probably not a coincidence)

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Re:My Experience at Apple by Apocryphon on Friday January 01, 2021 @02:32PM (#25605996)

Any large corporation that gets remotely near the headcount as Apple will have enough variance across team cultures that there will inevitably be cesspools of toxicity, true. But there's still the question if certain orgs foster a higher or lower standard across the org, and what factors contribute to it.

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Re:My Experience at Apple by simonh on Friday January 01, 2021 @04:01PM (#25607062)

That’s true, I’ve seen toxic situations happening in other teams like those described here at several employers that were otherwise good places to work.

Sometimes it’s down to a particular manager, but sometimes it can just be the consequences of a bad decision taken further up the food chain. This can leave a team in a no-win situation where even a good team lead can end up in a mess with no good options. I was at one employer where this happened and the team lead in question fell on his sword and quit rather than beat his team to death. I ended up taking on some of his responsibilities and team members and got some additional resources to deal with the re-org, so it worked out well for the team members and the company. It also gave me my first taste of management. It cost the guy his job though, which was grossly unfair. Not many mangers would have the guts and integrity to do something like that, and even if they did there’s no guarantee it would actually benefit the team. They could just be replaced by a tyrant.

The only answer is to be open and honest about what you think and principled in your own actions. Call out bad behaviour where you see it and say when you see mistakes being made. If you aren’t prepared to do so, why should anyone else? Too many people silently tie the line and keep quiet and then wonder why these things spiral out of control and end in disaster. It’s because nobody said anything or did anything about it. We have to be prepared to take responsibility for calling out what’s happening around us and what we do about it as employees. It’s not somebody else’s problem, it’s our problem. Don’t be afraid of losing your job, it may well happen but jobs come and go. Having principles carries a cost, but one I think is worth paying.

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Re:My Experience at Apple by lenkite on Saturday January 02, 2021 @12:40AM (#25610706)

I disagree. There are many large, profitable companies (>50k people) who don't need public or media attention to fire the whole managerial line-org once abuse is discovered and then hold several workshops for all senior employees and managers detailing out what exactly is acceptable in the workplace and what is not.

In-fact you don't get your bonus if you don't attend these workshops and score in these tests. HR regularly queries all low-level employees about their work/life balance and other other work-place issues and regularly sends feedback to senior management. Actually senior management even regularly has meetings with entry-level employees with team leads and management sent away from the room to obtain proper assessment.

But then this is a German company and not a US one. I will never work for a US MNC in my life after the bad experience I had early in my career.

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