At Least Some Apple Store Employees Love Their Low Paid Work
Following The New York Times not so successful takedown of Apple's (unfair?) treatment of its retail employees, pro-Apple site 9to5Mac talked with some current and former Apple retail employees, most of whom had nice things to say. In an attempt to make Apple look a little eviler, The Times' David Segal suggested Apple didn't pay its retail employees enough, given how much money the company makes. We (along with many other bloggers) were not quite convinced. But who are we to speak for the actual workers? Maybe it totally stinks? Well, at least the ones 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman found had reasonable, if not positive, opinions of working for the tech giant.
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On the General Experience
Anonymous employee one loved working at Apple. Yet, wants more of a career path -- something that could be said of any retail job:
I wouldn’t trade it for any other retail job. I’ve had an overall good experience so far, but I’ve been left wanting more. I have learned some valuable people skills and met the most incredible people (both customers and coworkers).
Anonymous employee two only talked of fun:
My first year at Apple has been a great experience for me. The way things have been done this first year is like no other. From having fun activities with colleagues as meetings to just overall having fun coming to work.
Anonymous employee three saw the experience as realistic -- it is a job after-all:
No matter where you work, there’s ups and downs. The 4.5 years I worked for Apple retail was overall positive.
On Money
Anonymous employee one does think they should make more money:
My pay isn’t great, compared to other retail jobs in the area (according to glassdoor). We should definitely be paid more than what we are now.
Anonymous employee two saw the reality of working retail for a rich company:
We live in America. If you’re not rich you are making someone else rich. Making Apple much more money than they pay me means nothing to me. It pays my bills and the end of the day that’s what matters. I worked at another high-profile technology company which also made a lots of money. And I was making less than what I’m making at Apple
Anonymous employee three discussed other monetary benefits of the job that don't get factored into wages:
Best experience was getting flown across the country to work at Macworld on Apple’s behalf. All expenses paid. It’s experiences like this that don’t get factored in to wages, so they are easily overlooked. For that week and a half I wasn’t worried about my hourly wages, I was having the time of my life, on Apple’s dollar.
Of course these select experiences can't represent the entire Apple retail staff which, according to Segal, is about 30,000 people on the retail side. But at least a few of these workers have no problem with the "short on pay" situation.
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Head on over to 9to5mac to read the full responses, including some pulled from The Times comment section.