
Dear Apple: Your Services Are No Longer Required - raydev
https://lowendmac.com/2020/dear-apple-your-services-are-no-longer-required/
======
jasode
_> I was an Apple employee for nearly 13 years, and I loved helping people get
the most out of their Apple products. All of that ended about 6 months ago
when Apple showed me its true colors. [...] I told him that yes I had in fact
helped a friend with a data transfer (something Apple does for free) and that
I had helped him on my own time. He told me that I had just admitted to a
major conflict on interest, and that an official investigation in to my
actions would now start, two days later I was suspended._

Maybe I'm missing some context but it seems like something huge has to be
omitted from author's narrative.

There's just no way Apple Inc's ~137000 employees are all saying to friends &
family, _" nope, sorry, I can't help you with your iPhone/iPad/iMac because
it's a conflict of interest and I'd get fired."_

~~~
crazygringo
Agreed. Nothing here adds up at all. Sounds to me like the author was let go
for different reasons entirely (and this was just an easy excuse for
management), or that something else is missing here.

The number of mentions about Apple providing the service "for free" makes it
sound like the author perhaps actually _charged_ their elderly friend, and
honestly that _would_ be a huge violation. I don't know exactly what the
author's job was (can't find it on the site), but if their job is servicing
Macs, it's very normal for their employment contract to forbid making money
servicing Macs outside their job -- it's literally having your own employees
compete with you.

But if the author didn't charge... then there's got to be a separate "real
reason" they were fired.

~~~
dathinab
But then this isn't the first time we read about an Apple Employee being
majorly mistreated / Apple having a questionable work culture on Hacker News.

If I should guess such kind of article pops up around every half a year since
I'm following Hacker News (I have an account since 4 years so more than that).

Some even came from people much higher up then this person seems to have been.

My guess is that they have a policy against it, but normally either don't hear
about "private support" or don't care about it. But do use it to get ride of
anyone who thinks differently in the sense that they don't agree with
everything Apple does, like complaining to another employee that it's petty of
Apple to sue some small company with a peach logo.

~~~
simonh
There are ex Apple employees here and on Reddit saying there’s no such policy,
so either this manager made up a bogus excuse and risks getting fired
themselves, or the author is concealing the real reason.

Surely the author must know this isn’t a policy violation though? Why not
report the manager, or sue for wrongful termination? It doesn’t make any
sense.

~~~
bb88
IANAL, but until someone posts the terms of employment for an Apple genius bar
somewhere, everything is pure speculation.

You can be pretty much fired for any reason in any company, with or without
cause. Apple probably isn't going to say anything. It could be as simple as
the manager wanted to hire his best friend's son, and needed an open spot.

~~~
myrandomcomment
Well yes and no. California where I am is at will, which means the company can
say hey, sorry do not need you and not give a reason. All good. However if
they do give a reason then they are required to be able prove the reason is
valid. Having managed a great deal of people I have been in situations where I
would document any issues in detail, however at the end the company just did
an “At Will” see yah termination as it is safer.

This is my understanding. IANAL or an HR person.

~~~
grayhatter
Pretty sure the company is on the hook for unemployment if they're fired
without cause.

------
aresant
To provide some context Ted Hodges, the author of the article, was employed as
an Apple Expert (1).

An Apple Expert is a ~$20/hr retail job - [https://jobs.apple.com/en-
us/details/114438150/us-expert](https://jobs.apple.com/en-
us/details/114438150/us-expert)

The "boss" he mentions was probably an Apple Store Manager or Assistant
Manager.

I understand the frustration from Ted but this feels a lot more like a
conflict between a mid-level retail manager wielding Apple's general HR
guidelines to terminate a retail employee vs. a broader story about Apple
hammer smashing a little guy.

(1)
[https://www.facebook.com/ted.hodges.338](https://www.facebook.com/ted.hodges.338)

~~~
mdoms
Are you implying this isn't important or impactful because he's a low-level
employee?

~~~
aresant
Trying to uncover some facts to help infer the article's complaint with nuance
prior to knee-jerk hopping on the "big apple is bad" flavor du jour was my
intent in posting the comment.

My point is not that it is less "important or impactful" but that working
within a retail environment vs a corporate environment - even at Apple - is an
apples / oranges comparison.

Apple has effectively the highest retail employee retention rate full in the
USA (1) - they have led the charge in changing the retail paradigm for the
better for 10s of thousands of employees.

My first job was retail and I would have killed to work at an Apple store.

Petty bosses wielding a 100 page HR rule-book that some back closet McKinsey
intern produced to fire anybody at anytime (even in states w/good protections)
is PAR for the course in retail.

Is it because corporate is evil or because managing a largely lower-
education(2), transient workforce is incredibly challenging?

Is it nuanced and two sided? of course!

Did this maybe happen at an Apple Store?

It might have!

Could it have been a manager looking for an HR dept defensible excuse to get
rid of a difficult employee?

Could just likely have been.

(1) [https://www.hrzone.com/community/blogs/mark-
mccormack/apple-...](https://www.hrzone.com/community/blogs/mark-
mccormack/apple-is-enjoying-one-of-the-highest-staff-retention-rates-ever-
whats)

(2) [https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/industry-at-a-
glan...](https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/industry-at-a-glance-the-
future-of-retail/)

~~~
mdoms
Can you explain how any of this is relevant to the post? Because I'm not
seeing it.

~~~
aresant
I accept your challenge, here's why my comments are relevant:

\- This post is front paged on HN, grabbing your attention, mine, and a
demographic that skews largely to Apple's core corporate HR need and customer
base.

\- It is important that the HN community can rely on the comments section to
gain insight or nuance that they would not otherwise have from the source
material.

\- The author works to harm Apple's reputation as an employer and company
suggesting one stops buying their products and opt out of their ecosystem etc.

\- This central argument, that Apple is an unfair and malicious employer, is
in conflict with Apple's objectively industry leading employee retention
numbers that I share above.

\- The author never discloses that he is/was a retail employee vs. a corporate
employee which I think anybody with an understanding of retail employment in
general would appreciate to have as a filter to assess his pov.

\- Without taking a position of this termination being right or wrong, the
evidence above suggests this is an edge-case and is probably not deserving of
my or my fellow HN users taking into deep consideration in our opinion of
Apple.

\- Instead it feels like a well timed piece of negative content that fits into
a narrative that several very large and powerful corporations are working hard
to try in the court of public opinion. (1)

\- - -

And then back to your comment - what lesson or theme are you drawing from a
single retail employees one-sided negative experience working within the Apple
employee ecosystem? What am I missing? Why is this relevant?

(1) [https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/17/21372480/apple-epic-
threa...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/17/21372480/apple-epic-threat-
developer-tools-agreement-unreal-engine-fortnite)

~~~
amoitnga
very well put. my first impression was “apple is bad”. upon closer examination
(reading comments, including yours) this post became much less scandalous.
Nothing out of ordinary and, actually, quite reasonable.

------
_rend
As someone who has previously (recently) worked for Apple as a software
engineer, I have a feeling there's something more to this story that we don't
know about. There's nothing that would indicate to me any sort of conflict of
interest in what this person did, and the most I can construe things is that
_maybe_ they were a Genius Bar employee, and _maybe_ this would count as a
conflict of interest _if_ their manager was really looking for a reason to
fire them, but I have a hard time imagining that anyone would go out of their
way to investigate this otherwise.

Working there, there have been plenty of no-no's that we had to be careful
about, and periodic training about conflicts of interest and similar, but
helping out family, friends, and acquaintances was certainly not it.

~~~
mikece
"I have a feeling there's something more to this story that we don't know
about."

The part that didn't make sense to me is how a manager even knew to ask the
guy if he had helped someone. My guess -- and this is only speculation -- is
that the "friend" came into the store to buy the new machine and/or have the
data transferred, objected to having to leave his old and new machines there
for a couple/few days, and the tech offered to just take care of it for him at
home, off the clock, since the tech knew the customer. Again, that hypothesis
could have nothing to do with the actual facts but it would explain how the
manager would even know there was a potential customer service event that
never happened... not to mention the liability to the Apple Store if an
unofficial agreement to work on the friend's computer happened in the Apple
store: what if the tech had accidentally bricked the computer?

~~~
mmcconnell1618
If the employee offered to service the computer while the customer was in the
Apple Store, the customer could have misunderstood the offer or assumed it was
sanctioned by Apple. I'm not sure the customer would win the case but Apple
has deep pockets and a good lawyer will extract a sizable sum just to make the
case go away.

------
save_ferris
This is what irks me about the “well they agreed to Apple’s TOS so they knew
the risks” argument we’ve been seeing regarding their legal dispute with Epic.

TOS are written in a way to give their authors the maximum amount of power and
leverage over the person or entity they’re working with, regardless of whether
or not the terms exceed the spirit of general defensive legal strategy.

This guy lost a job because helped someone with some basic computer work,
something many of us do with our relatives because they see us as “magicians”
or whatever and we enjoy tinkering.

It’s hard to imagine what additional context needs to be present in order for
Apple to be justified in doing this.

Just curious: does Apple maintain the right to disable my account if I talk
bad about them online? It wouldn’t surprise me, but I guess I should read the
TOS.

~~~
ouid
obviously TOS written by companies wielding monopoly power are bullshit. We've
just defined monopoly too narrowly in the law. Is it possible for me to obtain
an equivalent product from a competing company? If the answer is no, then you
are a monopoly. If your product is not interoperable with other products that
you are claiming equivalence with, then your claims at equivalence are
invalid.

~~~
dathinab
I believe monopoly laws should apply to any companies having a "few million"
customers and it not being trivial for customers to switch _or_ there not
being much choice to switch to.

In case of Apple it's neither trivial to switch (you can't move bought apps
over) nor is there much choice (in practice it's basically Apple or Google).

~~~
ouid
I have thought pretty hard about the need to include a fuzzy word like
equivalence in my definition of monopoly, what would it take for me to
persuade you to adopt my definition?

------
skygazer
The firing for for simply helping a friend seems shocking.

I did, however, once know a fellow that did tech support for an ISP, that used
his work calls to source his freelance onsite tech support business. Once the
main company found out they let him go.

Omitted from the article is whether the OP charged for his time. But I can't
help but think that either Apple is ridiculous, or we're not hearing the whole
story.

~~~
ape4
I don't get it either. Does Apple actually have a policy against doing
something that the Store offers?

~~~
hellofunk
If the story doesn't make sense, that usually means we haven't heard the whole
story.

~~~
kube-system
Moonlighting clauses are common. I am not sure what doesn't make sense here.
Businesses add them because they:

1\. don't want to potentially lose revenue

2\. don't want to dilute their brand

3\. don't want any liability associated with an employee doing work outside of
their officially sanctioned capacity

4\. don't want to culturally set an acceptable level of noncompliance with
procedure even if the above violations aren't egregious.

~~~
donor20
Two reasons we have anti-moonlight.

Insurance is very concerned about claims resulting from off the clock / third
party work related to day time work. So if you are a doctor working in a
practice group, and then do freelance work, that is going to absolutely freak
an insurance carrier out.

Security - people don't realize that a lot of stuff on-premise / on-network is
tracked and logged. So if you "help" someone out off-site / off work people
get nervous. T-mobile employee doing a sim swap with customer in store on
video - sure. T-mobile employee logging in off hours to do a sim swap - maybe
sketchier even if they are "helping a friend".

------
cptskippy
> In late January I decided to help an elderly friend with a data migration at
> home. He had just bought a new iMac and needed to transfer the data from his
> old one to his new one. Apple offers free data transfers, but my friend
> didn’t want to leave both of his machines with Apple for 3 to 5 days in
> order for them to do it. About 2 weeks later I was approached by my boss.
> Someone told him that I had helped a friend with his computer. I told him
> that yes I had in fact helped a friend with a data transfer (something Apple
> does for free) and that I had helped him on my own time.

The following is a fiction that is also the same story as above:

In late January an elderly gentleman, whom I'd helped many times during my
long tenure at the Apple Store, came in to buy a new iMac. As I was ringing up
his purchase, he inquired about how to migrate his data. I informed him that
Apple would be happy to do it for free but it would take 3 to 5 business days,
I then offered to come by his house and perform the migration for a modest
fee. A few weeks later the elderly gentleman came into the Apple Store asking
for me because he was having issues locating some of his files, he spoke with
my manager and explained the situation. Later my manager approached me about
the issue, I confirmed that I had been moonlighting and had solicited my
services while on the clock at the Apple Store.

------
jrnichols
Low End Mac had a poll on their Facebook pages asking if we read the articles.

There are now two "articles" that are basically "I don't like Apple anymore"
rants. This being one of them.

I have a strong feeling that this is also a "there's more to the story"
situation.

------
benbristow
Site seems to be down, WBM link here:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20200818181006/https://lowendmac....](http://web.archive.org/web/20200818181006/https://lowendmac.com/2020/dear-
apple-your-services-are-no-longer-required/)

------
chrisco255
We gotta remain skeptical of all the tech monopolies that are currently in
power. As a tech community, I feel we have a responsibility to push for open
source and free software (and ideally, hardware as well).

------
aminozuur
I have worked for Apple doing Technical Support.

The author conviently and entirely skips over which steps he took to 'help his
friend'.

Apple employees are allowed to help friends, obviously. What you are not
allowed to do, is to use Apple's special software tools that is intented only
for helping customers during work time. These are sensible rules that protect
the privacy or Apple users. I suspect the author had stepped out of line, and
neglected those rules.

~~~
ThePowerOfFuet
Data transfer to a new Mac is straight Migration Assistant territory. Nothing
special, internal, or proprietary about it.

------
vondur
So I'm guessing he was like a Genius bar worker or something? I suppose I
could see that can be an issue for Apple. If something went wrong and say he
deleted all of this persons stuff, and they call Apple and complain about
their employee working on his computer, even on his off time, it could be a
problem. Seems pretty harsh though.

------
MarcScott
> Apple was in my DNA. I believed in Apple’s products, Apple’s services, and
> Apple’s mission

I honestly can't understand such devotion to a corporate entity. I have a
preference for Thinkpads, but I don't worship at the alter of Lenovo. Give me
a Mac, Chromebook, Dell, Raspberry Pi... whatever, I'll happily use it.

Apple is a company, not a sodding religion.

~~~
dewey
> Apple is a company, not a sodding religion.

Just like a baseball or soccer club is a company. They can still have fans who
keep up with rumors, news and products more than the average.

------
abawany
(alert: has spoilers) It was sad to see that he supported and evangelized
Apple for 24 years (FTA) and yet they dumped him with nary a thought for
helping an elderly neighbor with a data transfer.

~~~
rootsudo
In the end, fitting. Anyone that put companies, people on a pedestal and think
they're perfect are in for a rude awaking.

------
manigandham
This doesn’t seem to be the whole story.

Also, unless you’re the founder, a corporation should never be such a big part
of your identity.

~~~
dathinab
Except that some of the big companies like e.g. Apple do all kinds of thinks
to try to make Apple not just your job but part of your live.

Furthermore I have meet with people not employed by Apple which where big
Apple fanatics, Apple for them was part of their identity to a non negligible
degree.

So yes this is totally possible in my experience.

Sure a founder is probably even more invested, but then the level of
(emotional) investment he show is totally realistic.

------
moksly
As silly as that firing is, I wonder if Apple has really changed that much in
those 13 years. I like that they are trying to produce hardware as sustainable
as possible, but if they were really interested in going green, then they
probably shouldn’t be trying to sell you a new iPhone every year. I mention
this, because it’s another example of how silly they kind of are when you look
at it.

I think you have to go waaaay back to the garage days to find an Apple that
wasn’t the Coca Cola of computers/phones/tablets/iPods.

Not sure where you’re going to find a major company that isn’t kind of rotten.
Most of them just have worse PR.

~~~
dgoldstein0
Apple at least has a good track record of making newer iOS wirk on hold
devices... I think they go back ~5 years? Same cannot be said for most Android
devices.

~~~
kps
> I think they go back ~5 years?

From introduction, maybe, from sale, definitely not. Apple sold the iPhone 6
until 53 weeks before iOS 13.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6)

~~~
V99
iOS 12.x has continued to get security releases, as recently as 12.4.8 a month
ago
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_12#Updates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_12#Updates)).
If you bought a 2014 iPhone 6 in 2018 it's still being maintained today in
2020.

------
dsspnt
If losing the job was not enough, what about a bunch of tech people siding
with your enployer saying your are hiding something, not telling the truth

~~~
guenthert
It's not that he necessarily hides something intentionally. There are reasons
why a company might want to separate from an employee. HR has to make sure
that this employee doesn't sue then the company, so they're fishing for
enforceable reasons. It might be bullshit, but if it's legally sound, they'll
use it. I think it's a fair bet, that this employee didn't have the best
standing with his superior and he might not even have been aware of it.

------
crististm
"Anyone who knows me knows that I was among the biggest Apple Evangelists to
ever live."

Think about this for a second. Is it possible that the 'cult', that by your
own words are 'evangelizing', is ever going to turn against you when you make
a mistake or do something that they don't agree with?

"I believed ... Apple’s mission (or at least what they said their mission
was)" \- these seems to be the words of someone finally waking up from a
trance.

------
znpy
Can I say that this post feels hypocritical, a lot?

It seems to me that the person writing this post has always known about the
bad behaviors from Apple, and always looked the other way.

Now Apple fired him and he's now complaining because he's not in the "cool
kids" club.

To that guy I say: you went with the bully for the last 13 years, you kinda
deserve all of this.

~~~
tasuki
I feel the same: the bad behavior from Apple somehow wasn't an issue for him
while he was being the biggest fanboy and an employee. When he gets fired the
bad behavior of Apple suddenly becomes important to him.

------
grayhatter
OP doesn't state he helped for free. If he charged the customer (that he met
while at work) for the service. That's a HUGE conflict of interest.

~~~
theandrewbailey
I had to re-read the article, but you're right: he didn't explicitly say that
_he_ transferred data for free (although he mentions Apple does it for free,
twice).

------
nomorealoha
If anything I respect Apple more now. There's a lot missing from the story
that I suspect the author deliberately omitted in order. Specifically what
sort of backup it was, whether he used software from work, and how much of an
observer he was into the data backup process. DATA being the keyword.

I respect that Apple treats customer's data with the utmost care, and that
includes minimizing techs running around offering their gray-market
professional services.

Disclosure: I have NOTHING to do with Apple other than owning an iPhone; I do
hate when people are flippant about data sensitivity.

------
8bitsrule
30 years ago I had an Apple (one-button) mouse switch go bad. I was good at
electronics and could easily fix in 5 minutes if I could get a switch. (Lived
in the boonies.)

So I called Apple (this is before 'genius' (hilarious) bars).

Me: I want to fix my mouse. Sell me a switch.

Apple: We don't sell switches.

Me: Why not?

Apple: (After pause) It's only an $80 mouse. Not worth it.

"Only." That's $135 in today's money. (A better mouse now sells for $7.) I
should let Apple charge me $135 to replace a microswitch?

You could just watch it going south. It all started when the Mac came out.
(The slim II manual had peeks and pokes in it. They actually supported
hobbyists and learners.) The Mac dox (think it was 3 huge volumes) had huge
lists of names of calls you could make. Just names. Soon the rainbow apple
turned to a chrome apple.

My next 'Mac' came from Power Computing. Yeah, Apple slipped up and put a gate
in the walled garden for a couple years. It worked great for 7 years. At
160MHz.

Software got SO much better. So, yeah, I slipped up and got an iMac -- cost me
twice what a similar PC would. (But all my music software was for PPC and
hardware used serial ports.) That iMac burned me in multiple ways.

I thought all that was horrible. Those times were gentle compared to today.
RUN AWAY

------
catmistake
iTed Hodges, sorry that happened. But you seem to be a little passive
aggressive. That is only one symptom of a notorious psychological disorder, so
it is a shot in the dark here: were there any other social conflicts at work
previously? Another symptom is an inability or unwillingness to recognize a
problem. Consider a psych eval, it may lead to changing your life for the
better.

I do not know for certain, but most companies have some sort of review process
where you can mount a defense of some kind. Forgive me for this opinion, but
it seems like there must have been something else going on, and this did not
occur in a vacuum out of the blue.

Don't burn your bridges, man. References are important. But it sounds like a
sh*t job. You can do better. Keep cool. You will get far more sympathy saying
nothing rather than going to war. Who wants someone like that working for
them.

------
neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200818181027/https://lowendmac...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200818181027/https://lowendmac.com/2020/dear-
apple-your-services-are-no-longer-required/)

------
donarb
Sounds to me he violated the rules by offering free services to the guy WHILE
he was in the Apple Store. Otherwise how would anyone else know about it and
report it to his boss?

------
ggggtez
Sounds to me like this guy's job is to do repairs. He may even have access to
tools/hardware as an Apple Employee that he doesn't have externally.

If he used corporate hardware to do the data transfer, then it doesn't matter
if he didn't charge the friend. It would still have been a policy violation.

Just a guess though.

------
hownottowrite
I’m struggling to understand why the “boss” would call after the dismissal.
This is a major HR protocol no-no.

In any case, why ditch Apple? Set up an alternative support lane for people
with machines out of warranty and clean up $$$

------
say_it_as_it_is
Quite a public relations campaign against Apple these days for doing no more
than what every other business is doing. Don't sell to Apple customers if you
don't want to pay Apple for their services.

------
aussir
I fail to see how this is a conflict of interest by just helping others. Maybe
if it was a widnows or linux pc? Even then it's still stupid.

------
halfFact
Your local nerds warned you. The internet warned you. People need to take
responsibility for choosing Apple.

------
anonymousisme
Interesting that this other article on his blog says he left Apple
voluntarily:
[https://lowendmac.com/2020/52259/](https://lowendmac.com/2020/52259/)

"After all this time, I cannot wait to see the back of Apple. I ditched iOS a
few years back and it was the best decision I ever made, now leaving Apple is
going to be the second best decision. I no longer want anything to do with
them.

My Mac is up for sale and I will be closing my Apple ID.

After hundreds of articles and over 10 years of writing for LowEndMac, this is
my final article. This is me signing off."

~~~
doodpants
Different author. iTed Hodges vs. Simon Royal.

