from Hacker News

I wanted to work at Apple really bad, and now not so much.

by HectorRamos on 2/11/14, 7:41 PM with 68 comments

• by jhight on 2/11/14, 9:14 PM

  I'm sorry to be the adult here, but this is a really childish way to handle what amounts to a problem with your supervisor. There are ways to deal with this that don't involve jeopardizing your (and your contracting firm's) image and then throwing a temper tantrum online.

  Other than the shitty boss, the other problems were silly (hours, commute, meetings). Were you really surprised by the commute? This is something you should've known beforehand.

  Some jobs suck, either try to fix it or leave. But don't act like a baby.

• by zellyn on 2/11/14, 9:30 PM

  Wow. You had me thinking, "If you had a bad experience at Apple, I should look you up and invite you to interview here where I work."

  Right up until the part where you walked out without trying to talk to your boss, your boss's boss, or your contracting company.

  Whether you leave should be a reflection on the work environment. How you leave should be a reflection on you. Better luck next time - perhaps something less corporate?

• by ronaldx on 2/12/14, 12:34 AM

  Wow.

  There are a lot of negative comments that I find surprisingly imbalanced in how they view the employer-employee relationship.

  Employers have the balance of power in almost any working relationship, and should take some responsibility in creating satisfactory employment conditions. Allowing bad management to mishandle employees is an abuse of that power. If a new employee doesn't choose to speak to HR, it's most likely because HR are doing a crap job of making new employees aware of what support they offer, if any.

  Apple (the company) certainly wouldn't think for one second about breaching contracts where the benefit outweighed the risk of legal consequences. We might say "that's just business". So, why should you personally care about breaching contracts if turning up to work has such a strongly negative effect on your life?

  I personally want to say to this guy: well done, you did the right thing for yourself. Find yourself better employment.

  Sorry that this job didn't work out, and I'm sorry it was so bad that you felt you had to take a (small, temporary) hit to your reputation, but if you needed to get out of there so bad, it was worth it: best of luck for the future :)

• by mullingitover on 2/11/14, 8:56 PM

  If he had valid cause to walk out, surely he could've gone to HR with his grievances against his boss? Since we're only getting one side of the story here, I have no way of knowing what parts of his story are true and what's been embellished. The story we're hearing is that a guy's boss was a jerk, but what if he himself was being an insufferable diva and his boss had no intention of renewing his contract for that reason?

  For some reason I don't feel like Apple suffered a great loss here.

• by gaius on 2/11/14, 10:07 PM

  Never, ever take "prestige" instead of pay. Because prestige is only worth anything if you can cash it in. So what does this mean, it means the sort of people attracted to "prestigious" companies are only there to get their tickets punched so they can get a more lucrative job elsewhere in a year or two. That creates a weird dynamic.

• by segmondy on 2/11/14, 9:01 PM

  I see people saying he should have given two weeks. Why? Companies don't give you 2 weeks notice when they fire you or lay you off. With that said, he should have talked to his boss. You are an adult. Yes, tell him that you don't find his jokes funny. It could be that he's trying to be funny without being insulting. If it continues then you can say for sure that the guy is an asshole. He handled it badly by not communicating. After talking to his boss, he could have reported him to HR. He could have also sort for openings in other departments. Two wrongs don't make a right, but I don't think his not giving 2 weeks is a wrong. The only reason I would give 2 weeks is that I'm in the middle of a project that my leaving will disrupt. However, should I be very uncomfortable and after having escalated my issue to the proper channels and no response? I would quit on the stop. Life is too short to be afraid of a big company. Quitting is your way of firing the company especially if you are of value. Good employees don't leave companies for the most part, they tend to leave bad management.

• by swampangel on 2/11/14, 8:17 PM

  While I understand that nobody should have to work for a boss like that, I don't understand why he didn't give two weeks' notice.

  He would have gotten out of there quickly enough without damaging any other relationships and, being on a term contract, there's a good chance he would have been asked to leave immediately anyway.

• by antoniuschan99 on 2/11/14, 10:09 PM

  I don't think walking out like that is professional. Sure, some companies can their employees without a notice, but that is not professional too.

  You definitely should've spoken with either his supervisor, or even the recruiting company. Apple is a large entity, and even though you didn't enjoy the meetings or the commute, fact is that's how they operate there.

  I've had bosses who were like that and worse. One boss would shake my chair when I'm working just to get my attention.

• by jtchang on 2/11/14, 9:00 PM

  Maybe it is the writing style but I find the author self entitled.

  If you take a job and it turns out it isn't what it seems you don't resolve anything by just walking out. Being impulsive rarely gets you anywhere.

  That said I've heard from friends that the working environment at Apple is tough.

• by beatrix_kiddo on 2/12/14, 4:15 PM

  Speaking under anonymity, as I'm currently employed by Apple. I want to state that my opinions are mine and mine alone, and form from my experiences with the company.

  This guy is an unprofessional whiner, and I would never consider hiring him.

  Short list of what annoys me from his article:

  - He was hired as a contractor under the retail division, but his overbragging would lead you to believe otherwise.

  - As soon as he was picked up as a contractor, he goes and updates everything to allude that he's employed by Apple. As someone who spent my first years also as a contractor (I've since been hired), this is incredibly unprofessional and against the code of ethics. At Apple you learn that you're part of a team, that you are just one piece of the greater picture, so to brag so much when you are such a small and new piece, is incredibly conceited. I would have never let him work on anything secret or prolific - he seems like the guy who would hog all the credit.

  - As someone who contracted for over a year, if I had misgivings about my manager, I would have spoken up. If I couldn't have gained the courage to talk with the manager directly, I would have gone to his superiors, or to at least the contact person at the contracting agency. From my experience, Apple's management hierarchy is built to facilitate things like this. I'm sure his boss's boss was around, and all he had to do is speak up if he really had such strong grievances about his treatment.

  - I find it hard to believe that he was really worked that hard. Additionally, if he had such strong reservations about wanting to have normal work hours and being home at an early hour, he should not have picked a job that required a 45+ minute commute.

  So not only does this guy quit in a wholly unprofessional manner, but now he has the audacity to go all over the Internet to whine about it.

  Good luck finding a new job, buddy, at least you have good design chops. But I can't see any corporate company wanting to hire him after this, and I can't imagine he'd have better work hours at a startup.

• by mikeleeorg on 2/12/14, 5:47 AM

  One of the top reasons that people leave a company is their direct supervisor. Even a good company culture and great pay can be overturned by a difficult boss.

  The takeaway for entrepreneurs is - hire your managers very carefully, and promote your staff into management roles very, VERY carefully. Just because someone is a great developer/designer/marketer/product manager, does not mean they will make a great manager.

• by protomyth on 2/11/14, 9:34 PM

  He really needed to talk to his contracting company and tell them what was going on. They generally will be able to help or at least extract you with a minimum of professional destruction.

  On a secondary level, someone needs to step up and tell the next level about this type of boss. They probably won't listen, but this boss is hurting others and someone needs to push the first domino.

• by mergy on 2/11/14, 8:41 PM

  Bad bosses are everywhere. Two weeks notice would have been a better way to go. People quit companies because of bad bosses. If he didn't even talk to HR or escalate anything, then shame on him. His impact will be minimal and everyone will move on instead of solving the larger issue.

• by jads on 2/12/14, 12:36 AM

  While I'm sure he thought it was a story worth telling, walking out without making any attempt at reconciliation was just unprofessional.

  What's worse, potential clients are going to Google his name, find this and then wonder if he'll bail on a project as well.

• by supergeek133 on 2/11/14, 10:15 PM

  People don't quit jobs, they quit bosses in most cases.

• by rdl on 2/11/14, 8:26 PM

  I've heard a lot about Apple's internal secrecy, and culture of working very hard, but I really hope this horrible boss was an outlier.

• by watershawl on 2/11/14, 9:06 PM

  I can understand why he didn't put in notice. Who wants to work 2 weeks under a boss that already treats you badly once they know you're leaving? That would be miserable, and for some people, the shame of leaving without notice is less than the pain from facing that manager for another two weeks.

• by codezero on 2/11/14, 7:56 PM

  I wonder how much of this tension was caused by going through an agency versus being a direct hire. The very short interview and subsequent time locked contract seem bad.

• by selimthegrim on 2/11/14, 8:57 PM

  This sounds remarkably like my brief experience as a contract Java dev for a certain large semiconductor company in the Portland area.

• by dfraser992 on 2/11/14, 10:39 PM

  The only thing that matters is what his contract contained in the way of the notice. "Two weeks notice" is quite obsolete these days, given how companies treat workers anymore. If it isn't in the contract, then to hell with that and any idea about "treating a company with respect" or some of the naive stuff people are commenting on. Respect runs both ways.

  "Two weeks" was de rigueur when I started my career - but I am old and the social environment or relationship between capital and labor has changed dramatically in the 25 years I've been in IT. Companies will do whatever they can get away with, even if it might be illegal-ish, and especially if it is a badly run company run by jackasses. Apple... well, I would never take a paycut just to work at Apple; I understand his enthusiasm, and the chance to get "Apple" on your resume, but if the situation was as intolerable as he says, then I certainly wouldn't say "tough it out"

  Also, the logic behind two weeks notice was that payroll, in the old days, was two weeks behind the time you've currently spent on the job. So you had to stick around for two weeks to let that catch up (and wrap up projects, transfer knowledge, etc). Logically, at this point, you'd take your unused vacation. That logic doesn't apply anymore - and also contract workers are different than full time employees, so the rules are different.

  But he should have spoken to HR at least, or some other boss, if only to get it down on paper exactly why he was going to leave - at least to prevent them from claiming damages or such due to his unexpected departure.

• by cordite on 2/11/14, 8:10 PM

  I am reading Peopleware right now. This really sets the boss to be the worst of the worst.

• by michaelwww on 2/11/14, 8:52 PM

  It seems like every organization practices some sort of hazing or 'bootcamp' techniques for new people. It's a way of testing people out to see how they react and it also seems to be human nature to do so. He didn't pass the test so some other contractor will get hired full-time.

• by andrewfelix on 2/12/14, 1:27 AM

  This isn't about Apple. This is about a shitty commute and a bad producer.

• by pm24601 on 2/12/14, 11:45 PM

  Excellent. Apple needs to lose more people to get the message.

• by badman_ting on 2/11/14, 8:30 PM

  I remember realizing in the mid-2000s how much I liked the things Apple made (still do), but would never want to work there. There are reasons why the things they make are so nice.

  I deduct no points for his walking out without notice. Somehow, I think they will be okay.