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Apple Retail Store Staff Set to Gain Raises of Up to 25%
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I hope the performance-based raise will be accompanied by some training. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, The Geniuses are generally good, but the floor staff are either
(a) liars
(b) not knowledgable of their products.
Multiple occasions while scouting for Mac Mini and MBP, I was talking to floor staff about performance differences between sub-classes of same computer. Instead of saying, "I am not sure, let me check for you", these people made up answers that did not make sense:
(1) "the $100-$200 price-jump is worth it if you consider the increase in RAM."
----- I asked him whether RAM upgrade wasn't cheaper than price jump. He said "installing RAM yourself will void Apple warranty"... liar or stupid?
(2) I asked floor person if quad-core will perform better for video-processing than dual-core + GPU... she said: "there is no difference for video processing." (after reading up myself, it seems quad-core has the upper hand).
(3) Right after a repair (while still in store), my uMBP trackpad was popping up on the upper edge. I told floor person and he said: "but it works, right?"
---- I please try and convince a car owner after repair that the resulting dent doesn't affect performance.
(a) liars
(b) not knowledgable of their products.
Multiple occasions while scouting for Mac Mini and MBP, I was talking to floor staff about performance differences between sub-classes of same computer. Instead of saying, "I am not sure, let me check for you", these people made up answers that did not make sense:
(1) "the $100-$200 price-jump is worth it if you consider the increase in RAM."
----- I asked him whether RAM upgrade wasn't cheaper than price jump. He said "installing RAM yourself will void Apple warranty"... liar or stupid?
(2) I asked floor person if quad-core will perform better for video-processing than dual-core + GPU... she said: "there is no difference for video processing."
(after reading up myself, it seems quad-core has the upper hand).(3) Right after a repair (while still in store), my uMBP trackpad was popping up on the upper edge. I told floor person and he said: "but it works, right?"
---- I please try and convince a car owner after repair that the resulting dent doesn't affect performance.
If 25 is the high end, and applied to the lowest-paid employees (entry-level Specialists in retail), then it's not so crazy. $9 to $11.
Alright, now I have to know! What's the difference between a radeon 6490 and a 6550?
Actually, I think that the level of knowledge you expect these people to have is a bit ridiculous. Could they know more about some things? Maybe. But most of the things you mentioned I wouldn't know off the top of my head either, and for 99.9999% of customers that walk through the door, the knowledge would be useless anyway.
Wow, lots of misinformation in this thread.
First, my fiancee currently works retail at Apple. When she was part-time, we both got benefits. Now she's full-time, and the benefits are even better. These are the same benefits that self-employed friends of mine pay $500+ a month for (for both of them), and my lady and I pay less than half that. Excellent coverage, too.
And to the guy that said that the raises top out at 10%, wrong. My fiancee got 15%.
6550 vs 6490
128bit vs 64bit bus
2x more pipelines
Slower clocks, but more overall dataflow due to wider bus
Also the 6490 is the higher end of the older series, while the 6550 is mid to lower of the next series (so 6490 is likely faster).
6490----------------------------------------------------
Manufacturer
AMD
Radeon HD 6400M Series
Radeon HD 6490M 160@700 / 750 / 800MHz
Radeon HD 6470M 160@700 / 750MHz
Radeon HD 6450M 160@600MHz
Radeon HD 6430M 160@480MHz
Codename
Seymour XT
Architecture
Terascale 2
Pipelines
160 - unified
Core Speed *
700 / 750 / 800 MHz
Shader Speed *
700 / 750 / 800 MHz
Memory Speed *
800 MHz
Memory Bus Width
64 Bit
Memory Type
DDR3/GDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory
512 MB
Shared Memory
no
DirectX
DirectX 11, Shader 5.0
technology
40 nm
Date of Announcement
06.01.2011
6550---------------------------------------------------------
Manufacturer
AMD
Radeon HD 6500M Series
Radeon HD 6570M 400@650MHz
Radeon HD 6550M 400@600MHz
Radeon HD 6530M 400@500MHz
Codename
Capilano-PRO
Architecture
Terascale 2
Pipelines
400 - unified
Core Speed *
600 MHz
Shader Speed *
600 MHz
Memory Speed *
800 MHz
Memory Bus Width
128 Bit
Memory Type
DDR3
Max. Amount of Memory
1024 MB
Shared Memory
no
DirectX
DirectX 11, Shader 5.0
technology
40 nm
Notebook Size
medium sized
Date of Announcement
26.11.2010
I appreciate being acknowledged & greeted warmly when I enter a store, particularly when that store sells high end, expensive products. I appreciate that I can make an appointment for service or for a free workshop & know that I will be helped in a timely manner.
I enjoy going into the Apple store, I don't have to hunt down a sales associate, I don't have to stand & wait forever for help or to pay for my purchases like I do at other stores. As far as being clueless about products go, have you been to Best Buy lately? About the only thing many BB sales associates have in depth knowledge of is the Best Buy warranty program.
I'm sure this is probably not the case in every apple store, but I have never had a helpful genius despite me politely explaining the problem and that swapping a harddrive does not break apple warranty. They have turned me away each time I tried to present my problem. It makes me think that all they is do help people who can't figure out how to turn on their computers.
I know they do more, but ive had bad experiences, and 30/h seems like a lot for nothing.
I know they do more, but ive had bad experiences, and 30/h seems like a lot for nothing.
haha it's part of the mac stereotype you know. Supposed to be easy to use, hence the lack of a manual.
So deserved! Way to go, Apple.
In the Apple Store I know best, most of the workers are kids getting through college on their own or graduates who couldn't find good jobs in the current job market.
Of course there are some flawed exceptions--I remind you that perfection is unattainable--but Apple employees are patient, gracious, and calm under pressure. I go to a very large, busy store, and the staff there is pleasant, friendly, and quick to help. I'm not an oblivious new-to-Mac baby boomer, either. I'm in my early twenties and I know computers.
I think the retail employees at Apple are doing a great job. Especially because I've witnessed them deal with situations I'd find unbearable within the first ten minutes. People forget their own passwords and (I'm not making this up) get angry with the Apple employees, who are too polite to point out that it's the customer's own damn fault. Or the customers who think that their happy-hour mishap with their wine-soaked iPhones should be covered under warranty. That's unrealistic.
This is followed by the self-titled "expert" who comes into the Apple Store specifically to boost his own ego by asking some obscure question that an Apple Store employee has probably never needed to answer before--for God's sake, not even .001% of the world population knows or cares about the differences between a Radeon 6490 and a 6550--and when the employee doesn't answer correctly or immediately, our "expert" runs home to his custom-built machine (sweet case mods configuration, bro), minimizes World of Warcraft, and gets on every techie website to tell of his "awful" experience with the "idiotic" Apple Store employees. It would have made much more sense to stay at home at look at the tech specs on Apple's website in the first place, by the way...the Apple Stores exist for people seeking service, not specs.
I digress.
But while I'm so worked up over this, here's a thought: maybe Apple should just give free Xanax to these poor kids. They try so hard and so many of their customers are just terrible people.
Seriously...let's all take a moment to be glad we don't work there.
In the Apple Store I know best, most of the workers are kids getting through college on their own or graduates who couldn't find good jobs in the current job market.
Of course there are some flawed exceptions--I remind you that perfection is unattainable--but Apple employees are patient, gracious, and calm under pressure. I go to a very large, busy store, and the staff there is pleasant, friendly, and quick to help. I'm not an oblivious new-to-Mac baby boomer, either. I'm in my early twenties and I know computers.
I think the retail employees at Apple are doing a great job. Especially because I've witnessed them deal with situations I'd find unbearable within the first ten minutes. People forget their own passwords and (I'm not making this up) get angry with the Apple employees, who are too polite to point out that it's the customer's own damn fault. Or the customers who think that their happy-hour mishap with their wine-soaked iPhones should be covered under warranty. That's unrealistic.
This is followed by the self-titled "expert" who comes into the Apple Store specifically to boost his own ego by asking some obscure question that an Apple Store employee has probably never needed to answer before--for God's sake, not even .001% of the world population knows or cares about the differences between a Radeon 6490 and a 6550--and when the employee doesn't answer correctly or immediately, our "expert" runs home to his custom-built machine (sweet case mods configuration, bro), minimizes World of Warcraft, and gets on every techie website to tell of his "awful" experience with the "idiotic" Apple Store employees. It would have made much more sense to stay at home at look at the tech specs on Apple's website in the first place, by the way...the Apple Stores exist for people seeking service, not specs.
I digress.
But while I'm so worked up over this, here's a thought: maybe Apple should just give free Xanax to these poor kids. They try so hard and so many of their customers are just terrible people.
Seriously...let's all take a moment to be glad we don't work there.
LOL, you're a funny bugger. Probably get voted down for encouraging you. Keep it up!
Thanks! You seem to be the only here with some common sense. I agree 100% with your 5th statement.
A job that you _truly_ enjoy is worth so much more than a job that you don't really like but get paid more for. Even though money helps a lot, it's not everything. The most important thing is that you feel happy and comfortable with your job and life.
And by the way, it really confuses me why everyone here seems to be so against "retail" positions. Sure it might not be a fancy CEO job where you earn millions of dollars/month... but i really can't see what's wrong with it and i would absolutely not call it "just retail".
that's what I said, they don't hire based on product knowledge. If someone is a condescending jerk that knows everything about apple, it is still a bad idea to hire them, and apple doesn't hire them.
That being said, does everyone on here know why Steve's outlook is not syncing properly with his iPhone? Does everyone on here know how to explain and show the assistive features of an iPad to a visually impaired/legally blind person who wants to buy one? Does everyone on macrumors know how to handle a ballistic customer who just dropped her new iPhone on the sidewalk outside but didn't purchase applecare plus? Does everyone here know how to recover an iCloud password for a customer who doesn't know her recovery email password, and lied about her age when setting up the security questions and doesn't remember the year. Then, when the mail password is reset, can't change the settings on her blackberry to receive mail again because she doesn't know her blackberry password either and is leaving on an important business trip tomorrow morning and tmobile shop is already closed?
an apple retail employee needs to know all of these things and so many more.
people on macrumors most often use common sense, know their passwords, and don't do crazy things with their products to mess them up in incomprehensible ways. Apple employees see that kind of stuff daily. If all apple store customers were like rumor forum folks, they'd need half the staff they have currently.
Actually, I see them knowing next to nothing about the third party stuff they sell. That's the most frustrating thing. They can tell you basics about their phones, laptops etc but not much else. I guess that might be on purpose as the more you know, the more you're worth.
Ask them about the headphones they sell and they'll admit to not knowing (correct response) or guess (worst response).
But product knowledge is everything when it comes to sales. They aren't high earners in the retail market as apple has already done much of the selling for them. They need to swipe a card.
"Apple's wealth not benefiting most workers"
(above is the hard-copy title for the article in today's Mercury News)
(above is the hard-copy title for the article in today's Mercury News)
This was more than 6 years ago. Was your fiancé working there and getting benefits working part time at that point? I can only speak for that time period but back then, from what I was told by the manager in charge of all 5 stores in Minnesota, they did not give insurance and other benefits to part-time employees.