
Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay - why-el
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/business/apple-store-workers-loyal-but-short-on-pay.html?_r=1&hp
======
GigabyteCoin
This article starts out with a fallacy that immediately made me stop reading:

 _Jordan Golson sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the
Apple Store in Salem, N.H._

No. The ~$3M dollars that apple spends on advertising _daily_
([http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Apple-products-
guru-m...](http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Apple-products-guru-
manages-a-933-million-budget-3622762.php)) are what put Jordan Golson in the
position of seeing $750,000 worth of purchases be made in front of his cash
register within 3 months of his working there.

Jordan Golson probably didn't have to "sell" a single customer who walked
through that door.

All I see in the 'Apple vs. Tiffany' image on the left side of the NY Times
page is a more efficient business model on the left.

~~~
angrycoder
All the money Apple puts into engineering and marketing counts for squat if
someone goes into an Apple Store and has to deal with salesperson who is
unhelpful or not knowledgeable. Best case you end up with an unhappy customer,
worst case you loose a sale or a customer for life.

The Apple Store isn't Walmart, the people that work there aren't just
cashiers. Hang out in the Apple store for 10 minutes and listen to the people
there talking to customers, now do the same thing at Best Buy.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
I've come to realise this is a New York thing, but every experience I've had
an Apple Stores has been filled with smiley, doltish people who are terrible
at honouring appointments on time. I go to the Apple Store when I'm willing to
trade sanity for immediacy; otherwise I _far_ prefer ordering online.

The Cupertino and Phoenix Apple Stores I've been to were different, but
comparing apples to apples (no pun intended) I've had great retail experiences
in other New York stores.

~~~
jasonlotito
> I go to the Apple Store when I'm willing to trade sanity for immediacy;
> otherwise I far prefer ordering online.

I've learned that the Apple Store is not where I want to go for immediacy,
either. Unless you are going when it's not filled with people, buying
something is a pain. I cannot fathom the need to wait for a "sales" person to
buy something specific.

If I want to buy an Apple product, I go someplace else. Apple stores have
never been a prompt or efficient shopping experience for me.

------
Shivetya
Oh hell am I going to step into it.

Uh, its retail job. No one there creates the products they sell. Better yet,
its not a hard sale. I would bet the majority of people entering an Apple
store are there to buy something, provided they can afford it.

While some could and can make a living off of these jobs I see them as a
stepping stone. As in, I would be forever fascinated by how these product I
sell and obviously like are made, the design, the programming. So I would
probably gravitate to learning the skills necessary to move into that line of
work. Some may see this as a guide towards starting their own business, how do
you market your product, present it, interact with people.

Still its not a job that requires any real education. It simply requires you
to remember some product information, some tricks and tips, and not be a
douchebag to other people, namely your co workers and customers.

They sell high priced products that are sold in large numbers, of course the
numbers will be distorted. I really dislike articles like this because not all
jobs within a company have the same value. When you have a product that nearly
sells itself it kind of tells me who deserves more money - hint they are not
at the store.

~~~
emmapersky
Have you ever worked in retail? I suspect not given your condescending
attitude towards the skills retails works need. Exceptional customer service
(which is what Apple Stores used to have, I think it's dropped off in recent
years) requirers exceptional interpersonal skills, and is not something that
anyone can just turn on, it's a skill - sure not one you learn through the
traditional education world, but a highly valuable one.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Sorry, but no. I have worked retail, as have many of my friends and family.
It's a low skill job, which is why it pays what it does and is done by armies
of teenagers.

------
danso
I applied to be an Apple Store employee a few years back, when the economy was
pretty sour. I got into the group interview with 15 other people...among them,
an opera singer, a Harvard masters, a helicopter pilot, and someone recently
laid off after 20 yrs in the pharmaceutical industry.

Before people here say, "Apple is doing a lot for people in jobs meant for
teenagers", keep in mind that Apple retail employees are of very high stock.
And don't kid yourself, if the average Apple employee were as apathetic and
unskilled as the average Gap employee, there'd be no way that Apple would be
so renowned as a retailer. When you're selling a product that sold itself, you
still need good people...as these particular produccts are luxury, and
customers have higher demands for service

~~~
jsavimbi
Keep in mind that there are people with experience and education everywhere
who through a variety of factors end up in retail. Apple simply skims off the
top. There are other retailers who do the same, the problem is that most
people never come into contact with those people, mainly due to the
exclusivity of their products so Apple can easily draw the attention of any
journalist due to their open door and relative geographic accessibility. It's
like restaurant rating sites; anyone can eat out and review a meal, ergo a
popular yet lazy approach.

What the article fails to address is that a) I'm already sold on the new
product prior to its announcement and release and b) as a backup, if I really
need it, there's a retail store where I can purchase the good or service that
I need to easily complement my previous purchase.

Apple store employees are gophers, regardless of background and pedigree.
They're cashiers that fetch my cables, machine or add-ons instead of me having
to surf through the isles of a warehouse cum store hoping to catch the eye of
someone wiring their third shift. And that's why I readily pay a premium for
their products: a combination of hardware excellence and premium customer
service.

That Apple doesn't pay commissions and top dollar to their low-level retail
employees doesn't surprise me. It's a manifestation of supply and demand and I
accept that.

------
nanijoe
For me , here's the key paragraph from the article:

"By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above
the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than
Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about
$12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer,
including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company
stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount."

~~~
toyg
For comparison, companies like Oracle and IBM don't offer "the chance to buy
company stock" even to senior techies and consultants, nor do they offer any
real discount on their own products anymore.

~~~
WalterSear
Except a cursory google search shows that they do, just like every other tech
company.

"Employee Stock Purchase Plan Oracle's Employee Stock Purchase Plan lets you
purchase Oracle common stock at a discounted market price."

[http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/careers/college/benefits/...](http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/careers/college/benefits/index.html)

"Employee Plan Account Access If you hold shares in the IBM Employees Stock
Purchase Plan, please use the Employee Plan Members site to access and manage
your holdings. ESPP participants will also to able to view and transact on
their registered IBM common shares that are not held in the ESPP. Instructions
for ESPP login access are on this page."

[https://www-us.computershare.com/investor/default.asp?bhjs=1...](https://www-
us.computershare.com/investor/default.asp?bhjs=1&fla=1&cc=us&issuerid=scusibm&landing=y&showinvestorcontact=y)

------
briandear
When you are an input, you will never get rich. Apple store employees are not
tricked into the job. They are promised x and they get x. If they don't like
it, they can go work for a Microsoft store. Or, they can stop complaining and
create something themselves. Apple has created so many jobs, not just at
Apple, Inc., but with the entire economy that has developed as a result of
their products.

Perhaps the NY Times ought to be criticizing General Motors for stagnant
growth and job losses rather than Apple who is actually doing something good
for the economy. I think that the NY Times is just jealous -- after all,
Instagram is worth more.

How many jobs has the NY Times created lately?

They find it easy to attack Apple, but seem to be sleeping when it comes to
companies like Solyndra and Fiskar taking millions of taxpayer dollars and
effectively wasting them. Apple is a net positive for the US economy, but the
NY Times doesn't care about that -- it's trendy to attack Apple.

Foxconn, for example, makes stuff for HP and many other consumer hardware
companies, yet it's always Apple that gets the worm from the media.

Nonsense. That's all this is. Linkbait rivaling Business Insider.

We can criticize Apple for many things, but job creation and economic value is
not one of them.

~~~
jrockway
Your points are worth making, but your tone paints you clearly in the fanboi
camp. This line is particularly goofy sounding:

"I think that the NY Times is just jealous -- after all, Instagram is worth
more."

You do know that newspaper articles are written by individuals, right? The CEO
of the Times probably didn't even have any idea that such an article was being
written.

~~~
briandear
The CEO doesn't necessarily know about each article, but you know the Times
doesn't run a hatchet job on a major corporation without it filtering up to
the top floor offices. Story lists are circulated among the executives. When I
was a photographer for Reuters and Sipa (1996-2002), I had, on occasion,
photos that would find their way up to the executive level before they'd be
released. I can specifically remember my photos from Jasper, Texas and the
James Bird Jr. murder getting some extra attention before they went out on the
wire. Another situation involved a Black Panther protest and KKK counter-
protest at the Gary Graham execution in Huntsville, TX.

Executives definitely know what's going on, especially with highly visible
targets.

Stories are promoted, killed, "massaged" or delayed for various reasons by the
executives. To believe otherwise is naïve.

The Times is losing subscribers, losing profits and you bet your ass that
reporters are worried about it -- their jobs depend on the company's survival.
Apple is increasing profits, hiring people and they're also non-union. Polar
opposite of the NY Times organization. I'm not disputing any of the Times's
facts, I am disputing the slant. Instead of addressing the very high youth
unemployment among recent college graduates, they instead attack a company
that's creating jobs -- without government "stimulus." That scares the typical
Times reporters because it goes against their common refrain that government
spending is necessary to save the economy.

Apple devices, specifically the iPad have cut into traditional newspaper
profits substantially as well. It could be said that the internet killed the
newspaper and the iPad is just fast tracking that process. People are
consuming more content, but they are paying for it less frequently.

They could have run the same article about McDonalds. Billions in worldwide
sales, yet cashiers are making low wages with no 401k, no stock purchase and
very modest, if any health coverage. Yet, the take on Apple. What's the
motivation? Are employees being abused? No. Are they being paid below market
value? No. Are they being denied benefits? No.

What's the story? "Apple employees make less than the executives but more than
nearly everyone else in retail." Big f'ing deal.

~~~
dasil003
You're reading too much into it. I'm pretty sure it's just run of the mill
sensationalism.

~~~
jrockway
No, it _must be_ related to Instagram somehow!

------
emmapersky
When I was a student in London I took a job at the Regent Street apple store,
the pay was a few £s above minimum wage (similar to the ratios mentioned in
the article), and I gladly accepted the offer as they were paying towards the
top end of retail wages at the time.

I never really felt that I was underpaid in any way, and I stuck around for
about 2 years through the end of my degree. It was a great place to work, and
I still have a bunch of friends from those days, some of who still work there.

Sure, it's not a world changing job, and compensated equivalently, but it is a
great job and there are 30000 or so americans (and many more worldwide) who's
rents are being paid through there jobs.

Good for Apple!

------
Spooky23
I sold $350k-$1.2M / month when I worked at CompUSA in college (late 90s). I
averaged $10/hr jan-september, about $18 november/december.

I was usually ranked 3 out of 100 salespeople. The rest made $6.60/hr.

I wasn't being exploited, and neither are the folks at the Apple store.

~~~
orbitingpluto
I take it you're an exceptional salesperson.

But the problem with your argument is that most people aren't exceptional.
"Most people" is the very definition of normal. And normal people deserve a
living wage, especially if they're working for the most profitable company in
history.

~~~
seunosewa
Nobody deserves anything.

~~~
scarmig
I assume that if the government were to expropriate all the capital owned by
shareholders of Apple, you wouldn't be out there saying that they deserve to
keep it?

------
JumpCrisscross
_Many technicians, though, wanted to leave but were unable to find equivalent
work, according to Mr. Garcia and other former managers, in part because of
the weak economy._

For a job paying the median income for a 25+ individual with between an
associate's and bachelor's degree their labour seems fairly priced if there is
nobody else bidding for their skills.

------
wallflower
This story reminds me of my friends who worked for non-profits. It would be a
perpetual hamster wheel of recruiting volunteers, organizing events,
preparing. All of them were burnt out after two to three years and left. That
is typical industry turnover.

Once they left, many were able to find corporate jobs in which they doubled
their meager salary. Working for a recognizable non-profit is a filter for
someone who works hard (at the entry level, the higher up you go, the more it
is about being friends with major donors)

None of them regret it, you believe in the mission and thus you give them part
of your youth.

~~~
chris_wot
Great for those who work for non profits who take care of people. Not so great
if you work at the cult of Apple to get people to buy expensive hardware.

------
rdl
Most of the people on the floor are kind of wastes of space -- I hate going
into the Palo Alto store to buy anything, because the employee rarely actually
knows what it is. I asked for "thunderbolt to gigabit ethernet adapter", which
is pretty straightforward (and not stocked on the floor, since it's small and
thievable I guess). 3 separate employees had no idea what it was, and then one
of them decided to ask a manager, who did know. The geniuses are good, but
they're not the retail people.

(I would have used the Apple Store app on my phone, but it doesn't work on iOS
6 beta...)

I kind of get the impression most of the Apple employees are there just to
sell and "support" iPhones and iPads, not Macs.

------
Ryanmf
I worked at two Apple retail stores over the course of ~3 years. I did sales,
worked at the Genius Bar, repaired machines and performed data transfers in
the back, and delivered a shit-ton of One-to-One sessions. Though I generally
enjoyed myself and remain good friends with many of my former co-workers, I
never want to work there again, so here's some supplementary material they
evidently don't want me to provide you with.

First, the top comment in this thread is…how to put this
delicately…presumptuous, moronic, and generally unbecoming of the quality of
discussion I expect on HN.

 _No. The ~$3M dollars that apple spends on advertising daily are what put
Jordan Golson in the position of seeing $750,000 worth of purchases be made in
front of his cash register within 3 months of his working there._

Um, cash register? Have you been in an Apple store recently? Where exactly was
the cash register again? I must have missed it. And where did the customer
procure the computer to place in front of Jordan at the nonexistent register?
Oh wait, they're all in the back, a sales exercise would already have to be in
progress for a boxed computer to make it out to the front of house in the
first place.

Yes, Apple spends a lot on marketing, and they're damn good at it. The same
might be said about BMW; Could their salespeople be replaced with mannequins
without negatively impacting sales? How about Louis Vuitton? That shit sells
itself, right?

The vast majority of customers who buy a computer in an Apple Store are buying
their first Mac. In fact, the majority of them have never so much as entered
an Apple Store prior to that visit. Perhaps they've had friends recommend a
Mac in the past, perhaps they've even made up their mind before they walk in
the door, but the average Apple Retail customer is far from a frothing-at-the-
mouth fanboy. If I had to select a single word to describe first-time Apple
customers (to reiterate, the majority of Apple _Retail_ customers are first-
timers—I'll return to this) it would be _skeptical_. A knowledgeable,
approachable sales team is an absolute necessity in that context. (I can think
of a dozen instances when a jilted potential buyer wrote an email to a manager
complaining that they walked in, had no idea what to do, weren't approached,
and bailed—at which point a meeting was called and everyone had to double down
on the _Warm Welcome_.)

The best salespeople at Apple would be the best salespeople wherever they
worked. And if they worked somewhere else, they wouldn't have to contend with
a sales floor full of people who _are not, and are never going to be
customers._ Think about that for a second. I can't think of another retail
chain where every machine on the floor is an internet-connected, totally
functional computer. At an Apple Store, they are. Many of them are even loaded
up with pro apps, and you're welcome to play as long as you like. Before I
worked at Apple, I had no idea how many homeless people had email accounts. I
had no idea how interested teenagers were in taking 500 iSight photos of
themselves in public. Shit, we had one dude (easily the coolest transient I've
ever met) who just came in and danced to YouTube videos. One time he tried to
convince me that Michael Jackson composed all the music in _Sonic the
Hedgehog_ (which actually turned out to be half-true, in reverse).

Somewhere in all that mess, Apple's sales team identifies the sometimes timid,
frequently baffled first-time customer, answers questions, addresses their
concerns, and ultimately sells them what is by all accounts an expensive ass
computer.

Let's take a step back. Although Apple aren't the volume kings of retail
computer sales, they do move a lot of units. Any idea what percentage of
revenues are generated inside an Apple Retail Store? Last I heard (it's been
over a year since I was on Apple's payroll) that number was less than 15%.
There have been rumors for years that Apple operates the Retail stores at a
loss as—you guessed it—a marketing expense. How does that figure into your
theory?

Now that I have that off my chest, some other points:

-The only people I knew at Apple who made real money had been there from the beginning. Which is to say, they were in high ranking positions that didn't have a direct path to management (basically Genius and Creative) and got in early enough to receive stock options in lieu of bonuses when Apple wasn't doing so hot pre-iPod/Macbook/iPhone/iPad. The sole exception: "Store Leaders," Apple's term for the head manager of a retail store, a gig that frequently entails a six figure salary. Assistant managers are paid significantly less.

-The article is spot-on as far as poaching managers from other firms, though I encountered just as many former Starbucks managers as I did former Gap managers. The only managers I knew who had been promoted up the ranks at Apple were lifers (i.e. in some cases had been employed by Apple from the day the first retail stores opened), and most of them were stuck in Asst. Manager roles while Store Leaders were generally recruited externally. One of my managers had previously managed a MAC Cosmetics store. (Hah! Punny.)

-As you might expect, technical knowledge was rare among managers, in my experience. If you ever have an interaction with a Genius, and they mention that they need to confer with a manager and put on a sour face, they're not faking it. Almost every Genius I've ever met held their managers in absolute contempt.

-Apple doesn't hire for technical knowledge, except in the few roles where it's absolutely required (Again, Genius and Creative, and even some of the Creatives are kind of dopey.) They hire a personality type/range, with the expectation that they'll be able to train employees on technical details as required. If you've ever been to an Apple Store, and are a big enough nerd to be reading HN, you should probably have assumed this point already. If you were bitching in this thread about how Apple Employees aren't knowledgeable enough because you expected them to know even a fraction of what you know, perhaps you're not as perceptive as you think you are.

…

~~~
Ryanmf
…

-From the article:

 _it wasn’t a surprise to upper management because it was clear that many
geniuses wanted to leave. There was a ceiling. It wasn’t a glass ceiling
because everyone could see it._

A-fucking-men.

Okay, so here's my tale of woe. I was hired as a part-time Specialist
(salesperson). I'm terrible at sales, but I'm a nice guy and I know
technology. Also, I'm tall, and people like that for some reason. So I kind of
fit the description of the archetypal Apple Retail hire, except when a
customer asked me a question I actually knew what I was talking about.

It wasn't long before managers and other employees were sending the most
bizarre, detailed, or otherwise highly technical questions in my direction, as
any Geniuses on the clock already had their hands full. I would proceed to
spend as long as possible chopping it up with a fellow geek, all the while not
selling anything. This soon got the attention of my store's lead creative, who
sent me off to a two day training session, after which I had three dedicated
days a week wherein I did nothing but One-to-One training sessions.

It was more interesting than sales, but I was never promoted to Creative, nor
did I receive any sort of pay raise. In fact, I couldn't even get management
to officially promote me to full-time, despite the fact that I was
consistently being scheduled 36-40 hours a week (occasionally they'd drop in a
29 hour week to absolve themselves of any legal obligation to promote me).
Multiple calls to HR were met with insistence that "those decisions are made
at a store level." (Eventually I adjusted my availability such that they
couldn't schedule me more than 36 hours and I had Thu-Fri-Sat off every week.)

All the while, the internal training program for Geniuses and Creatives was
effectively frozen. I would discover why when they eventually introduced a new
role between Specialist and Genius/Creative, called "Family Room Specialist."
An FRS splits their time between 1to1 training, Genius Bar shifts focusing on
small device (iPod/iPhone/iPad) triage and repair, and basic repairs/RAM
upgrades/data transfers in the back.

There were employees at every Apple store who had been doing all these jobs
for years. Most of them had been doing them as Specialists, in my case for
about a year and a half, in other cases I was familiar with as long as five
years. When the FRS role was conceived, management held a hard line that a
"promotion" to FRS was in fact a lateral move—no raise, no negotiation. I was
in the second group of FRS hires at my store, all of us had been doing the
same shit with a different title for some time already. All of us were passed
over on the next round of Genius/Creative promotions. Conversations with
management went nowhere, as they had little understanding of what our jobs
even required, and as the article indicates, there was always a line of warm
bodies around the block ready to enlist.

Even if I'd been promoted to Genius, I stood to make as little as half what
the highest paid Genius at the time, another Apple lifer, was making. And
that's really where the trail ends for many Apple employees, and I don't just
mean internally. Most skills that make you a great Apple employee are totally
non-transferable, due to the company's priorities (although noble) being so
inconsistent with much of the retail world. I hear all this about how Apple's
a great thing to have on your resume, but it hasn't done me a whole hell of a
lot of good.

I was happy to hear earlier this week that some of my friends might be getting
much-deserved raises. I'm also happy that I got the hell out of there when I
did, and couldn't imagine working there again. I was a PC geek before
switching to a Mac when I went to college, and I was deep into Mac nerdery
well before I started working for Apple; I had my own reasons for being there.
However, some other folks there hit the kool aid pretty damn hard, which can
be an annoyance, particularly when they're technical dunces. As previously
stated, unless your career aspirations amount to working at the Genius Bar or
teaching old people how to use the Google for $15 an hour, there isn't much of
a point to working at Apple for any extended period of time.

Most critically, many of the customers are absolutely fucking reprehensible.
Let me repeat that, in slightly different terms: If you walk into an Apple
Store, act as if the technician you're speaking to caused the problem you're
having with your iPhone (Hint: Generally speaking, you're the problem.), and
give the impression that you believe no one else in the building has a problem
that matters—especially if you behave aggressively and/or condescendingly,
issue ultimatums, throw adult tantrums, threaten legal action, or demand free
replacements/upgrades you don't deserve—allow me to recommend, on behalf of
all Apple Retail employees, past and present, who are restricted from speaking
for themselves, that you _EAT YOUR OWN ASSHOLES, YOU DESPICABLE CUNTS._

------
lucasjans
I think the majority of us are missing the point. "Good" American jobs are
hard to come by. No longer can unskilled retail sales people make a living
wage, even at Apple. Glad I work in tech.

~~~
jinushaun
It scares me to think how many more jobs in the future will no longer have
living wages. Retail used to be a living wage job long ago.

------
jsz0
Like any other part of the labour market wages are largely based on the supply
of labour. There are probably millions of people in the United States alone
who are qualified and would be happy to work at an Apple Store for the same
wages. Truth is there are plenty of people who would work for lower wages.
Retail is not really a career. It's a job. If you want to make money you need
a career not a job.

------
Domenic_S
This just in: a bottom-rung retail job doesn't pay very much.

------
swdunlop
tl;dr -- retail jobs pay low wages, Apple included.

What I took away from it? Apple is paying market rates for its semi-skilled
employees in a high unemployment market. The market is the problem, not the
employer.

------
jiggy2011
I think the most interesting thing is the mention that a huge number of
college grads work at Apple stores. I wonder if this is just due to the
economy with more educated people just gravitating to retail in general or
whether employment at an Apple store has a prestige that is comparable to a
more traditional role for a degree holder?

~~~
WalterSear
What else are you going to do, if you are young, intelligent, naive, and have
spent 4 years working very hard but acquiring no actually marketable skill?
You 'start at the bottom' like your parents tell you.

Of course, they don't realize that the bottom goes nowhere today.

------
nn2
Nothing new. As usual the faithful are the suckers.

~~~
briandear
How much is that Best Buy job paying these days?

------
Tycho
By not paying that much, they filter for people who have an extra incentive to
work for Apple (ie. because they love the brand).

------
pbreit
tl,dr; Apple retail jobs are in high demand, pay reasonably well and have
excellent benefits. The NY Times was able to find some folks to speak badly
about that.

