Ex-AppleCare Employee Describes Life Inside Apple

ahknight writes "A former AppleCare employee writes about his time in Apple. From the article: 'I remember when I first started at Apple they had a picture in the training class of some guy in flip-flops, shorts, and a tropical shirt in a decorated cube with a goofy grin, the message being: it's casual. One fellow even went as far as pushing that to the reasonable limit by showing up to work every day for several months in a bathrobe and sandals (and shorts). I don't recall a word ever being said. I think he actually just gave up because no one said anything.'"

Comments

Shame the same can't be said for apple re-sellers

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for two years at an apple re-seller dealing with support and sales. I can honestly say that the casual 'easy' lifestyle never made it to there..

I'm just about to start legal procedings against my former manager!

All of the Apple representatives that came to check up on 'us' as well didn't seem to have inherited the casual lifestyle either .. stiff as a board.

Re:Oh it's "this guy"

[Aladrin]

I was only part time, but it was while I was in college. I worked phone tech support for a major computer manufacturer.

Despite being more knowledgeable and more helpful to customers, I was passed by for 'promotion' (if you call it that... the place sucked) several times. Poeple that knew a LOT less and usually just messed up my customer if I had to get a second opinion on something.

Until 1 day, the seating arrangement changed. I ended up sitting right next to the head of our area. I said good morning every morning and suddenly I was 'backup team lead' about a month later. Another month later, another seating rearrangement, and for the next 2-3 months, I remained 'backup' and people who had never even been backup were promoted to full team lead.

At the time, it stuck in my craw that I had to 'suck up' (even tho I was just being my normal self at the time I was promoted, I'd have had to go out of my way to be nice under the new seating) to the boss (female, if that matters) to get anywhere.

I was only there 6 months, but I learned a LOT about politics in the workplace. Geeks tend not to do well with it, but it's worth the time to look into so you at least know why thse things are happening to you.

Re:Oh it's "this guy"

[MichaelSmith]

That said, a decade in support will wear on a person.

Tell me about it. My dad worked most of his life in process control. Building networks in mines and factories. I am sure he had a lot of fun cruising the world with a toolbox and an ethernet analyser and being shot at in PNG.

Now the local branch of his company has turned into a phone support operation and it is totally the wrong type of work for him. He knows his stuff technically but the job is too structured for him. A 63 year old tech shouldn't have to take X number of calls per hour or get carpeted by management.

So he is retiring soon and I am trying to set him up with a business fixing valve amplifiers. He is old enough to have started out on valves and they have come back into fashion. If I had known he was being made to do this kind of work I would have been pursuading him to get out before his heart attack, not after.

Re:little Apple

[v1]

One of the things I get to do at work (computer sales shop) is answer tech questions on the phone. I actually very rarely get a hostile customer, and in those cases they usually either don't stay hostile for long or they realize I don't own a Magic Wand and go away. Most of the customers I deal with are the clueless, they call with basic computer questions that carry their own special brand of frustration. There are also the variety that are cluess AND think that your entire day has been reserved for providing phone support for them. "hi I just bought my first computer and a printer, can you show me how to make christmas cards?" Those questions really do happen. We try to draw the line at 5 minutes of phone support. Any more than that, and they have four choices: bring it in, have us come out, send out a professional instructor we reference (much cheaper than sending out a tech) or keep trying to figure it out yourself.

All in all most of the tech support calls I take are short and productive, and quickly resolve the customer's questions. The part that takes the longest time is just figuring out exactly what new and creative thing the customer has found he can do with/to the computer. After long enough you can guess pretty quickly what the issue is. My favorite: "Every time I click my mouse a little window opens up". "Take the book off your keyboard". "What?" "Take the BOOK off your KEYBOARD." "The what? .... oh, that works! How did you know I had a book sitting on the corner key on my keyboard?" "You're not the first." Now consider that call took 20 seconds. Now guess how long the FIRST one of those calls took? (hint: I broke my 5 minute rule more than once)