Anyone work for Apple?
AlGarth
353 Posts
I have an interview soon for a position at a local Apple store working in the back.I was just wondering if anyone knows what it's actually like to work there.Pros/Cons?
Comments
I work at an Apple Specialist, and it is OK...
As far as working for Apple, I have heard it is just OK too...
You would be working service?
One of my best friends started off at Apple in one of their Bay Area retail stores, then became a genius, now trains geniuses down at HQ in Cupertino. I can relate her experience:
In general, she really enjoyed working there. Apple employees have a particular kind of camraderie that comes from working for Apple (aka "Kool Aid sippers") and so the store tends to attract particular kinds of personalities. It can be a lot of work though I think that's more dependent on the quality of the manager (some things never change, no matter what company you're talking about) and there will be days when you'll be working crazy shifts and especially around holiday time - woo hah - shit is OFF THE WALLS.
Also, you have to have really really good personal interaction skills. People who tend to buy stuff at Apple range from know-nothings who need to be handheld through working an iPod to tech equivalents of the Comic Book Guy who will sneer at you if you don't have a rebuilt Lisa computer sitting at home or the 1984 video playing on continuous loop on your iPhone. Just be prepared to smile a lot.
He quit to pursue the fancy wine & food biz. IMO he should just become a food critic...
- spidey
chiat day?
Seriously?
Well okay. Yeah I still have it but it's not for sale so forget about it. In fact I've recently resurrected it and have been actually riding it around lately. I need to master going backwards now. I've also adapted the name inicycle in honor of the late Peter Tosh who was a unicycle master.
seriously... pm me.
Oh yeah, I forgot how much of an Apple hater you are
Wasn't there something awhile back where families of Apple employees marched around the HQ campus protesting Apple's 70-hour work week during crunch time?
I do know that Apple employees in Cupertino get paid real nicely. Not like Google, but still real well.
Neither Apple or Google pay well... they disguise their lower than average salary through their cult like corporate environment. Look how much fun everyone is having... now drink the Kool Aid! Gotcha bitch!
Although as I'm transitioning out of being a tech guy and into being a marketing/biz dev guy, working at Apple would probably give me some good experience. Who markets shitty products better than Apple? Nobody
TY... Laugh of the week!
Though I shouldn't laugh. My gurl & I just got a Macbook Pro.
I probably won't use it unless I'm running parallels or VM fusion off it.
HATER!!!
My wife worked at Apple HQ, in marketing/design. It's definitely one of those cases where the cachet of being "allowed" to work there often times allows Apple to exploit their staffs more so than less cool companies. That said, I've heard that one of the absolutely, positively worst places to work in this regard is LucasFilm/ILM. By comparison, Apple really isn't that bad based on the people I've known who've worked on their corporate side. That the HQ in Cupertino really, really, really needs is childcare services. It's pretty wack they - and they're hardly alone - don't provide that for employees.
But in terms of the "good experience" - as a designer, my wife's been able to write her own ticket since leaving the company. That Apple listing on one's resume is a crazy door-opener.
With Google: I've yet to hear from anyone who doesn't like working there (unlike Apple). Any horror stories?
Google is a whole different story! Holy shit! Part of it is regret... I turned down a part time job at Google as a junior in college (2000-2001) because I had my own startup.
I had lunch on the campus once with some friends that work there fairly recently. It's a resort, not a company, and there's just no way they can continue like that. I'd love to see their daily costs for food and entertainment. Astronomical, I bet. I'm waiting for them to implode... trying to take over the world with one very basic revenue model just isn't possible. I won't put money on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
I'm not 100% sure but I think I got the job so I might be able to let you all know how it really is on the inside.
The weird thing is that for some reason I'm not all that stoked. The problem I have realized is probably more with myself than Apple. This would be my 3rd year straight without a "REAL" job and I'm doing fine just grinding and hustling. I basically work for myself and have gotten spoiled by the lifestyle. I have come to realize that I have a problem trading 30-40 hrs of my week for $11.50 an hour. I make almost the same on ebay and various other endeavors which to me is real work in itself. I guess I feel like I'm worth more than that or something even though I don't have a degree or any real justification for feeling that way. I'm saying can anyone even live on $11hr in California? But I also realize that my lifestyle/income works for me because I only have myself to support and my rent is cheap etc.. So I have been thinking a lot about the future and debating with myself all day and I think I will take the job if they offer and try to keep a positive attitude etc.. I'm kinda bummed about the pay and the benefits don't kick in unless you are full time and I would be only part time and frankly the benefits were one of the major motivating factors. On the bright side it does look good on a resume and it might be good for me to start mixing things up a bit anyway.
Ditto. Everybody I know who has worked there said it was great (though they did say it was swarming with Type A/alpha dog types, which would drive me nuts pretty quickly).
As for LucasFilm, I have heard that it can be a tough place to work, but I've known several people who work/have worked at LucasArts, and they all rave about it. I've tried to get in there several times, but as you can imagine, the competition to get the scant few jobs that pop up is pretty damn fierce. In fact, I still hit up the people I know over there every so often just to see if there are any openings. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my current job, but LucasArts sounds like a fantastic place to work.
Well, their one basic revenue model (online advertising) is growing at a very nice clip, and the acquisition of DoubleClick will only bring in more money--and faster.
Plus, they are expanding into other profitable fields. (I'm about to lapse into InfoWorld editor mode, to my great disgust.) The big move these days is bringing Web 2.0 shit to enterprises, and Google is very much at the forefront of that. They're even starting to bleed revenue away from Microsoft by offering Web apps as alternatives to MS Office.
That said, they also have big problems with security and with downtime, and until those two issues are addressed, people are going to be very wary of Web 2.0 shit in general and Google's offerings in particular.
This is my shit right now, but in the mobile industry. Pretty exciting stuff happening.
You're in luck... I actually had the article up just now cuz I was pulling quotes for a presentation.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
have you tried googling it?
Actually seriously here is a pretty good explanation:
what is Google?
They have the Internet on computers now?
dj day make the beat?
it is? I dunno this Israeli dude didn't really clarify it for me. he's like, there's three components to web 2.0, and then he proceeded to define each one in terms of "buzzwords" with which those components are "associated."
basically web 2.0 is just characterized by better, more interactive websites? In that case I don't really see a clear 1.0/2.0 division. it's all a continuum, right? websites get better and better and more responsive to users over time. I don't see any revolution in that.