Gizmodo: Corrupt Apple store employees 'smash iPods like toys, trade electronics for plastic surgery and outright steal'

Gizmodo: Corrupt Apple store employees ‘smash iPods like toys, trade electronics for plastic surgery and outright steal’

Is this for real?

Technology • December 2012 • Views: 2,848

This story about employee misconduct at several Apple stores comes with a number of photos and does seem to have multiple sources. But the level of misconduct it alleges strains belief. I worked retail for several years and I never saw anything like this, nor would my managers have tolerated it. So you tell me, folks; Do you think this is for real?

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15 comments

PhillyPretzel Sat, Dec 22, 2012 4:49:48am

I just got my MacBook Pro and while I was there I asked to use the ladies room. It was neat and clean. The back of the store looked like a very neat BJ's. This store was in King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania.

ThomasLite Sat, Dec 22, 2012 6:17:19am

Frankly, I'm not even all that surprised. "Renegade" stores like that in large retail chains are a fact of life; it takes a hell of a lot of supervision to keep folks in line (especially when they're doing intelligent work at crap wages). If, as stated, Apple's monitoring of their retail outlets is so lax, I'd be surprised if crap like this wasn't pervasive (at least the stealing & looking through private info stuff as well as the sexual harassment - wanton destruction of gadgets like that is a bit rarer).

Romantic Heretic Sat, Dec 22, 2012 6:28:31am

Saw that yesterday. My impression is that the writer is looking for a gig at The Ministry of Truth, sorry, Fox News.

It took a few incidents, not to be unexpected in an organization as large as Apple, and conflated it into "The whole fucking company is corrupt! Evil! Evil!"

I can't say I find that surprising. A huge section of the IT community hates Apple with the heat of a thousand burning suns. I call them 'hotrodders' because they're the type who like to get under the hood and tinker. They look with disdain at those who just use computers like others use cars.

There's a lot of power involved too. I once likened the PC world to Catholicism and the Apple one to Protestantism. In the former the priesthood manages your relationship with God. In the latter you have the relationship with God. Priests don't like being cut out of the loop.

Dark_Falcon Sat, Dec 22, 2012 6:31:51am

re: #3 Romantic Heretic

Saw that yesterday. My impression is that the writer is looking for a gig at The Ministry of Truth, sorry, Fox News.

It took a few incidents, not to be unexpected in an organization as large as Apple, and conflated it into "The whole fucking company is corrupt! Evil! Evil!"

I can't say I find that surprising. A huge section of the IT community hates apple with the heat of a thousand burning suns. I call them 'hotrodders' because they're the type who like to get under the hood and tinker. They look with disdain at those who just use computers like others use cars.

There's a lot of power involved too. I once likened the PC world to Catholicism and the Apple one to Protestantism. In the former the priesthood manages your relationship with God. In the latter you have the relationship with God. Priests don't like being cut out of the loop.

Shouldn't that last be the other way around if the PC is the one you can tinker with? Apple would seem very top down in that sense.

ThomasLite Sat, Dec 22, 2012 6:45:18am

re: #4 Dark_Falcon

Shouldn't that last be the other way around if the PC is the one you can tinker with? Apple would seem very top down in that sense.

Depends on your POV. Since my parents went pretty much all-Apple in their hardware I never get called on to 'fix' stuff they managed to break (again...) or just couldn't make work anymore. In that sense, to the complete layman, Apple is (or was, windows got a lot better these last few years!) a good way to have a PC they can use without having to educate themselves all too much or having to have a helpdesk around.

...But really, let's not get into this age-old holy war again :)

Dark_Falcon Sat, Dec 22, 2012 6:55:41am

re: #5 ThomasLite

Depends on your POV. Since my parents went pretty much all-Apple in their hardware I never get called on to 'fix' stuff they managed to break (again...) or just couldn't make work anymore. In that sense, to the complete layman, Apple is (or was, windows got a lot better these last few years!) a good way to have a PC they can use without having to educate themselves all too much or having to have a helpdesk around.

...But really, let's not get into this age-old holy war again :)

Yes, let's not. My angle was that of someone with retail experience, not as a Partisan in the Computer Holy Wars.

Skip Intro Sat, Dec 22, 2012 9:21:56am

So Apple has some problems with it's retail employees. What big retailer doesn't?

Now if they start cheating the customer by selling them used/broken/returned items as new, that's a whole other story.

Destro Sat, Dec 22, 2012 11:16:00am

re: #2 ThomasLite

Frankly, I'm not even all that surprised. "Renegade" stores like that in large retail chains are a fact of life; it takes a hell of a lot of supervision to keep folks in line (especially when they're doing intelligent work at crap wages). If, as stated, Apple's monitoring of their retail outlets is so lax, I'd be surprised if crap like this wasn't pervasive (at least the stealing & looking through private info stuff as well as the sexual harassment - wanton destruction of gadgets like that is a bit rarer).

You hit the nail on the head. You have smart people being paid crap wages and this is the result. I always assumed (til I learned better) that Apple store employees were by and large kids in college and this was their part time job while in school (because I knew they were paid really badly) and to my shock this was their full time job.

These employees can't even live in the cities they service with the wages they get paid.

And they can't find other jobs because there are none out there.

ThomasLite Sat, Dec 22, 2012 11:35:15am

re: #8 Destro

You hit the nail on the head. You have smart people being paid crap wages and this is the result. I always assumed (til I learned better) that Apple store employees were by and large kids in college and this was their part time job while in school (because I knew they were paid really badly) and to my shock this was their full time job.

These employees can't even live in the cities they service with the wages they get paid.

And they can't find other jobs because there are none out there.

To be fair, the problem with CS jobs such as these is that there isn't much economic 'room' for better pay. That used to mean that they were jobs for college students etc. around here; with the current situation however, these jobs get taken by full-timers. One of both will have to go - either the employee type/age or the pay level - but that last one would mean the job will simply disappear, I'm afraid.

Destro Sat, Dec 22, 2012 12:05:18pm

re: #9 ThomasLite

All good points.

Kdizzle Sat, Dec 22, 2012 12:34:47pm

This just confirms my suspicion(based on experience of course, well with Verizon and AT&T anyway) that all people who work at cell phone stores are terrible terrible people.

Blanket statements are so fun to make.

Dark_Falcon Sat, Dec 22, 2012 12:45:56pm

re: #11 Kdizzle

This just confirms my suspicion(based on experience of course, well with Verizon and AT&T anyway) that all people who work at cell phone stores are terrible terrible people.

Blanket statements are so fun to make.

So now you're insulting me too, eh?

Charles Johnson Sun, Dec 23, 2012 11:13:47am

Sorry, but this story smells like bullshit.

Dark_Falcon Sun, Dec 23, 2012 5:32:45pm

re: #13 Charles Johnson

Sorry, but this story smells like bullshit.

OK, but I'd ask you not to downding me over it. I honestly wasn't sure and there are a lot of techheads here. I posted it in good faith, Charles.

Aligarr Sun, Dec 23, 2012 7:36:01pm

I dont know about the sexual , destructive stuff , but one thing I can tell you , when ANY company starts bringing in "retailers " , especially subcontracted , shit quickly starts to hit the fan . Company indices become the new god , manangers are held to them , and in districts , there are LISTS . No manager want to be on the bottom . Ethics becomes the first victim, as slamming ,lieing, and outright deception become the means to meet sales quotas . Managers know , but they also know it's thir ass that's exposed if quotas or expectations are not met . This is prevelant in the large companies due to the ratio of getting sales ,and losing sales to due to getting caught in a lie by the customer . The thinking goes like this ...if we make 20 sales and lose 8 due to unethical behavior , our goal should be to bring that number down to 6 , rather than just putting out a directive forbiding the practices under the threat of termination of offending employees . Because of huge sales volumes there is no real concern over this .Apple is no exception.

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