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Apple Gifts Employees Custom Incase Backpacks for the Holidays
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Hey, Mr. Professor, have you ever heard of the concept of corporate governance? If so, please note that Apple is apparently not very good at it (http://www3.gmiratings.com/home/2012/02/ignoring-shareholders-wishes-at-apple/). The concluding line of the article reads "Thus Apple stands out in more ways than one: ignoring the wishes of a substantial majority of its shareholders, and claiming that Californian law makes it difficult to implement majority voting." I can just hope your responsibilities in academia do not include anything that requires getting the facts before drawing a conclusion...
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It's also controversial if you refer to it as a Christmas gift instead of a "holiday" or "winter" gift.
Wow, that took like 60 seconds.
Really ? Does the word "Christmas" offend you ? Or you just like rolling your eyes in the name of the P.C. police ?
You can call it anything you like. Learn some tolerance.
I used to work in Germany too and yes, they have a "13th salary", but it's just whatever your annual salary is divided by 13, whereas in the US or elsewhere, it's the same negotiated annual salary divided by 12.
It can be argued whether or not one is better than the other depending on if you withhold 1/12th of your annual salary every month to give yourself a bonus at the end of the year or have the company do it for it you.
Having worked in 6 different countries, the German system is the most generous and socially fair. Don't forget that especially Bavarians get 6 weeks paid vacation plus 14 or so national holidays. That's like a 14th and 15th salary compared to the meagre 2 weeks most employees get for paid leave in the US.
Perhaps you don't understand what a bonus is. It's something extra and completely not required or necessary. Millions of people receive absolutely no bonus regardless of how hard they may work throughout the year. Anything is better than nothing.
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And that is the point. Companies stop treating their employees with respect. It used to be employees got a cut of the profits.
Where I work our bonuses is based on the profit. We get a cut of the profit split among the employees based on our pay check.
That used to be the norm. Now they haven been cutting that out from companies and made worse is they do not increase their pay due to reduced or removed bonuses.
For example for me to leave where I am at I would almost need to be offered a 15% pay bump just to make me consider it as a break even. Other places would cut that very nice bonus to employees and not increase their pay to compensate.
Now I do not count on my bonus until I have it but it is used to fund my hobbies, saving for down payment on a house.
Reduced bonuses those it's are either delayed or reduced as bonus is quick jumps.
It would be nice to see employees treated with respect again.
LOL
Although I completely agree with you and consider entitlement issues one of the biggest problems in society today...........I have to say that I have not personally experienced ANYONE with the christmas spirit you speak off that would donate it to the local homeless shelter except for the odd homeless person I have encountered.
I just happen to unfortunately be surrounded by some pretty wealthy people and i can't personally think of one that i know that would make such a gesture, yet my artist friends that are starving would do so.
Either the word is up side down or i have turned into my parents
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Although I disagree with the entitlement issues here and throughout the world today, I would like to see that show and would not be in any way surprised to find out......well, almost anything.
But then, although i have plenty of apple products and do love them, I don't share the blind devotion many do.
Steve Jobs managed to make Apple very "cool". People that used macs were rebels where as PC users were run of the mill people, at least according to Apple fan base throughout process.
Jobs somehow hid capitalism behind the facade of rebelliousness but now that he's goneI suspect its just a short time before apple fan boys come to understand that Apple is likely one of the top companies they will come to hate.
Cheesy or not, it was a great gesture if only because it was not necessary for them to do and in my experience, the more money you have, the more people are resentful and expect items for free, so does it surprise me that people here feel Apple had nerve to hand out this knapsack and yet wish to complain about it?
Not in the least....
How many hours did you have to scour to try to find a supposedly critical article about Apple's corporate practices. Are you claiming that the majority of Apple's stockholders are unhappy? I doubt you even understand what you read. And don't take an attitude with me. If you want to make some real arguments refuting my statements please feel free, but "Hey, Mister Professor" is how a child begins an argument. Refute what I said with some logic, not a snippy response with a 2012 article totally off point.
Edit: Talk about Pot and Kettle: I guess you didn't do your research. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/01566c76-5e39-11e1-85f6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3M1p4j3vb
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Well I hate to say "Steve never would have done this" but he never would have done this. He probably would have made the entire company pull an all-nighter on Christmas Eve and fired anyone who protested.
The thing about Tim Cook is he obviously thinks Steve Jobs' tight-fisted ways are the right way to run a company but he also is inherently more generous. So he does what a lot of people do in these "nature vs. nurture" conflicts: they do something half way that pleases nobody (or rather, displeases a lot of people).
I do think there's a happy medium between Steve Jobs' penny-pinching and the rest of the Silicon Valley behemoths' extravagant employee perks (Facebook, Google, etc.). I just think Tim hasn't found that medium yet so what we're left with is an awkward backpack.
The thing about Tim Cook is he obviously thinks Steve Jobs' tight-fisted ways are the right way to run a company but he also is inherently more generous. So he does what a lot of people do in these "nature vs. nurture" conflicts: they do something half way that pleases nobody (or rather, displeases a lot of people).
I do think there's a happy medium between Steve Jobs' penny-pinching and the rest of the Silicon Valley behemoths' extravagant employee perks (Facebook, Google, etc.). I just think Tim hasn't found that medium yet so what we're left with is an awkward backpack.
Only iPhone/ipod touch? It should be a Macbook Pro Retina,
Free 5k iMacs for everyone! lol
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm making fun of how people get upset about that. I have no problem with it. Someone here actually gave me a Christmas present about 5 minutes ago.
When I worked for Procter & Gamble, every year we got an assortment of food goodies in a P&G-branded container. One year, it was a wooden soap box like what they used to ship Ivory in and another year it was a rolling gym bag. Inside there was stuff like a canned ham, chocolates and assorted P&G products. Probably worth about the same as this gift and all of us were happy to get it. That was in the '90s. I just saw a Facebook post from a current employee with a picture of the box she got this year and she was excited about it, as were other people who commented about whether they had gotten their box yet. There were other small employment perks like some discounts on P&G products and getting company store credits for testing products but I never got anything like a big bonus or fancy holiday party even though I was an engineer. And I never complained about that. You people whining about this gift are just self-entitled brats who watch too many movies about fancy Wall Street jobs with big bonuses and fancy parties. Real life is going to disappoint you.
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And how do you define "blind" devotion? Are people not allowed to admire a company or be proud of where they work to the point where they would be glad to have a nice item with the company logo on it? My business involves corporate events and all I see on the jobs are people proudly wearing stuff with their company's logo on it. I know when I worked for P&G and they were retiring the Moon and Stars logo, I bought a bunch of the stuff with that logo on it as they were clearing it out and I have it to this day, even though I was laid off back in the '90s. Some companies create loyal and proud employees, other companies have employees who are only in it for the money and couldn't care less. I would rather work for a company I was proud to tell people I was a part of.
That's a blatant insult to people who don't wear rings. And how would we know if the diamonds are conflict-free? It would be a disaster! Apple might not survive the outrage.How about a fraction of a carat diamondembossed ring. Long-time employee can get a carat, mid-time would get a half, under 2yrs would get a quarter carat.
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Blind devotion is what other people feel. Only I am capable of having discernment.
The article I referenced was the first hit in a Google search and actually referenced the article you cited in drawing its conclusion regarding the lack of corporate governance at Apple. In fact, the title of the article to which you provided a link is entitled "Apple yields to governance reform call".
As documented in your citation, Apple only improved its corporate governance when a large pension fund investor pressured Apple's management to do so. Metaphorically speaking, mouthing the right words after an extended battle and then only with a financial gun pointed to your head, doesn't exactly equate to corporate character or industry leadership. In fact, this behavior suggests just the opposite.
Thank you for proving my point...
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Apple fanboys already hate Apple. But that's always been true, so there's nothing new there.
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Apparently you find it controversial if they refer to it as a "holiday" or "winter" gift. Since Apple can't please everyone, they may as well use an more inclusive term. They'll leave out people who don't think Christmas should be a holiday, or that it should be in the winter, or that anyone should give gifts.It's also controversial if you refer to it as a Christmas gift instead of a "holiday" or "winter" gift.
So you expect them to give something?! That's why employees are paid a salary funnily enough.
Having said that not only is the sentiment nice but they have around 85,000 full time employees which means that they have spent near on a million bucks (based on your $10 a bag) which they certainly didn't have to
omg, a whole million! i rather buy something right now so they don't go bankrupt.
i don't work for apple, but the corporate can do a lot more to appreciate it's workforce that is is pushing BILLIONS of profit through those store apples you ass!
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no, the problems is your thinking - keeping the economic gap widening, just because we don't value "low-end" work positions?
why don't you go for apple and see how you would feel...
i don't work for apple, but the corporate can do a lot more to appreciate it's workforce that is is pushing BILLIONS of profit through those store apples you ass!
Every xmas season? I din't think so.
FYI, Apple employees get deals on the stuff they buy from Apple as well.
I'm about as liberal/socialist as they come and even I think that notion is asinine. I love how people feel free to spend other people's/company's money. People aren't beating down Apple's doors to work there because people feel so abused and cheated there. I have a relative who works in an Apple store and he looooooooves it. Even invited his bosses to his wedding to my niece (and they showed up).
Maybe you are projecting the conditions of old Czechoslovakia on this? And you've freelanced most of the time, right? So you really don't have much corporate employment experience to draw from, and no American corporate life experience. So you are kind of talking about your fantasy of how it is, not real life.
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If it was something far more costly they would run into the issue of old vs new employees. Yeah, it looks cheap coming from huge a large company however if I worked there it never would have crossed my mind to get more then a paycheck unless I had a much higher position.
Nothing wrong with people selling them if they have no use for it. Basically getting a few extra dollars pay.
I doubt I would be thinking *where's my ipad* even if that would be cool I know I would have to be set much higher for that type of gift.
Nothing wrong with people selling them if they have no use for it. Basically getting a few extra dollars pay.
I doubt I would be thinking *where's my ipad* even if that would be cool I know I would have to be set much higher for that type of gift.
Worked for Apple for a few years too. We used to get fsee iPhones and much better holiday gifts. The last few years, I too made a little extra money on eBay. Logo blankets and water bottles are pretty Lame for a billion dollar company. The corporate employees definitely are the guys getting taken care of. Retail really gets overlooked and is under appreciated, except for the 2 minutes during each product keynote.
