Yeah, I'm calling B.S. on that story...
Good luck trying to get her to understand something that simple
That was just stupid of you. 40 minutes? Do you not know how to be assertive and let a specialist know what you are there for? Duh.
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Apple Retail Stores Seeing Significant Layoffs of Recent Hires?
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Yeah, I'm calling B.S. on that story...
Good luck trying to get her to understand something that simple
Personal Observation and Conversation
I deal with a specific Apple Store in my city, and a business pro who is one of the best I have ever worked with. I was surprised a couple weeks ago when another member of the business team contacted me on my pending order, not my usual rep. I went to the store, talked to my rep personally and found out he had been demoted by the new manager. He was not angry or bitter, but a bit frustrated.
Why?
He had the most business sales on the team.
He never got his promised raises, the ones we heard everyone was getting.
The manager favored some over others.
Again, it's one conversation, but it does give some insight.
I deal with a specific Apple Store in my city, and a business pro who is one of the best I have ever worked with. I was surprised a couple weeks ago when another member of the business team contacted me on my pending order, not my usual rep. I went to the store, talked to my rep personally and found out he had been demoted by the new manager. He was not angry or bitter, but a bit frustrated.
Why?
He had the most business sales on the team.
He never got his promised raises, the ones we heard everyone was getting.
The manager favored some over others.
Again, it's one conversation, but it does give some insight.
Why put a whole group of people through a months training (presumably costing a fair bit in the process) and then lay them all off at the end? What changed in the space of a month? I feel sorry for the kids who have probably given up or left other jobs to join Apple. It's totally shambolic.
Instead of posting this here, why don't you communicate this to Apple at a higher level. I did and the manager of the store had to call me to rectify things. I would put it in the context of you as a business owner and your great experience with this guy and you disappointment of how someone that has given you such a great impression of the company has been treated. Can't hurt to try. At the least puts a red flag on that manager's poor management.
This is awful and as others have already pointed out that in store pickup takes an hour because there is never enough staff to help. It's getting to the point where I could have it shipped to my house and ground shipping would be quicker.
This does smell like the work of John. It's about time apple finds someone new...
This does smell like the work of John. It's about time apple finds someone new...
I would totally agree with that. It's very easy to get a bad name as a high street retailer and once you do it's very hard to change people's perceptions.
If anyone should know that then it's Browett. Dixons/Currys could resurrect Mother Theresa and make her the CEO and still most people would think they were a bunch of lousy crooks with terrible customer service.
Honestly, this is just about plain greed now. With a $100bn in the bank they can't afford a few quid to keep these kids employed? What is the world coming to.
PS Apple would do well to remember that their retail staff make the company. I have never met Steve Jobs or Jony Ive or anyone else in their star team. I have however met their frontline staff at my local AppleStore. Call me old fashioned but if I get bad customer service I just walk out and go somewhere else to spend my money. Pissed off shop floor staff will carry that over into their work. In my experience most shoppers tend to make their mind up to buy or not buy in the store so you need enthusiastic, motivated, energetic AppleStore staff to keep the buzz.
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Absolutely no evidence or sources are given. It sort of fits with what we know of John Browett. But I think that is overshadowed by the fact that there's really no reason to believe an unsorted story which presents no sources, statistics or information of a factual nature.
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What makes you think this story is even true?
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What makes you think this story is even true?
American company American rules, and not sure about there in the UK but here in the "Colonies"
its more of a "FU" to the worker and winners take all. The top here in the States make the most take the most and earn the most. Healthcare is a joke, and we will all be lucky if we can retire in 20 years. Teachers make a joke of money. Kind of nice even if its a small one that the your seen how its here in the States.
Top abilities make galore money anything less and well you can see what happens.
It's quite depressing reading through some of the comments on this thread. I've not experienced too many problems in my local AppleStore. I can usually get served fairly quickly and they seem to have plenty of staff. I just avoid busy times like a Saturday. I've had great service from some of the most unlikely people. There is a young lady in my local store who has dreadlocks and piercings everywhere. At first I though ok this is a bit weird but she was really good. However I noticed that some of the new staff just don't seem to have any technical knowledge about the products.
I go into my local store quite often after work for the training workshops. I probably could do it online but I enjoy the sessions. It would be a real shame if Apple started to dismantle some of the things that make an AppleStore different from other retailers just to save a few quid.
I go into my local store quite often after work for the training workshops. I probably could do it online but I enjoy the sessions. It would be a real shame if Apple started to dismantle some of the things that make an AppleStore different from other retailers just to save a few quid.
I have no reason to believe the story is untrue. AFAIK it's based on numerous emails from AppleStore employees to MacRumors and if you read through the thread there are lots of comments from current or former employees backing up the claims. I've certainly noticed a difference myself as well. Staff seem a little less enthusiastic these days. Some of them just look plain bored.
Bingo. All those swallowing this story hook, line and sinker probably shouldn't go to stores by themselves (or already aren't allowed to go out alone).
You've posted that before when defending Samsung. Looking at your short history of posts it's more than obvious who you represent and why you're here.
it actually makes sense, at least at my location where i always see way too many people working the sales floor standing around in groups talking to eachother.
WestonHarvey1 said:
It is a truism that when you raise minimum wages (price fixing) total employment goes down. This is widely accepted as true and well understood as the accepted cost of doing business for the social engineering value of price fixing. One can debate whether it is a good idea or not, but cannot honestly argue that raising labor prices does not lower employment levels.
The same principal applies to other forces like regulatory costs, like the ACA (Obamacare) mandating employers pay more health care costs for employees who work over a certain number of hours or have a certain time of service or for a company with over 50 employees. This increases the employer's costs of keeping employees so they may lay some off, or hire fewer.
The same principal applies to a recession. As sales decline, the available budget for employee costs reduces.
In the USA we have all three factors at work all at once in case you missed it. They all bias toward lower employment. The actual numbers published by the FEDGOV confirm this as the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3% and the participation rate in employment ticked down a percentage point or so.
Rocketman
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American company American rules, and not sure about there in the UK but here in the "Colonies"
The top here in the States make the most take the most and earn the most. Healthcare is a joke, and we will all be lucky if we can retire in 20 years. Teachers make a joke of money. Kind of nice even if its a small one that the your seen how its here in the States.
Top abilities make galore money anything less and well you can see what happens.
It's interesting to read your comments. We have a perception in the UK that retail customer service is so much better in the US than the UK. Quite frankly we are used to lousy customer service on the UK high street. In many ways the AppleStore was a breath of fresh air.
I haven't been the US for a few years. Do they still say "have a nice day" everywhere. I kinda liked that even if I know they didn't really mean it lol. I went to New York once and the customer service there was brutal. "Hey buddy you gonna buy that or what". And there was no graffiti on the subway trains like in the movies.
Seems like not all is well across the pond. Just think how much better things would be if you had stayed a colony
We could farm off one of the royals to be your head of state. We'd make sure you don't get one of the ugly ones. You could have a bacon butty for breakfast, a limp sandwich for lunch and egg and chips for dinner and die of a heart attack at 60. You can even have a little union jack in the corner of your flag if you're very nice. I get the sense that healthcare is a contentious issue right now in the US. Did you see the Olympics opening ceremony? I know a lot of people were quizzical about the whole NHS section but honestly in so many ways it's the best thing about this country which is why they put it in. Not sure those outside the UK got it but it went down well over here especially as our idiot prime minister is trying to dismantle parts of it.
I can't say that I'm that surprised and/or bothered. The last time I was in the Breahead Apple store in Glasgow I counted 27 employees on the shop floor alone (who knows how many more were behind the scenes), and it still took far to long to make a simple transaction.
At least 27 employees explains why their cheapest laptop is approaching £1000
At least 27 employees explains why their cheapest laptop is approaching £1000
Store sucks anyways
Aside from the overcrowding ... my last experience (about 6 months ago) at the Apple Store was sketchy at best ...
I had an older Core 2 Duo with 10.4 installed from DVD. I wanted to upgrade the OS but the sales rep told me they no longer sell any version of OSX on DVD.
He told me the only way to get App Store and the latest OS installed was to go online and download a torrent for 10.6 and install it from a USB key - since Apple Stores no longer carry 10.6 on DVD. From there I could use the App store to upgrade to 10.7 etc.
So the only time I actually entered the store they turned me away and told me to go download a copy via torrents. Crazy!
Aside from the overcrowding ... my last experience (about 6 months ago) at the Apple Store was sketchy at best ...
I had an older Core 2 Duo with 10.4 installed from DVD. I wanted to upgrade the OS but the sales rep told me they no longer sell any version of OSX on DVD.
He told me the only way to get App Store and the latest OS installed was to go online and download a torrent for 10.6 and install it from a USB key - since Apple Stores no longer carry 10.6 on DVD. From there I could use the App store to upgrade to 10.7 etc.
So the only time I actually entered the store they turned me away and told me to go download a copy via torrents. Crazy!
It's not a *truism* at all. Raising the cost of labor *may* cause employment to go down, but it is not a given because so many other factors are more important - like the demand for labor in the first place. This is even more true when you are talking about the legal minimum wage, which in times of strong labor demand is often below the de facto minimum wage.
In the mid-90's, when unemployment was very low, the minimum wage was around $5/hour. But the lowest wage actually paid even at low end establishments was $8/hour - with 5% unemployment, that was the lowest market rate. Under these circumstances, you could have raised the minimum wage by $3/hour and have had no effect on the job market. (It's also relevant that even when places do pay the minimum wage, it is generally paid to teenagers and part-time workers; it's a very small part of all wages).
In any event, the effect of the legal minimum wage is not relevant to the above-minimum wages paid by a retailer: Apple raising its wages doesn't automatically translate into reduced employment at all; that's completely up to Apple. It may translate into higher labor costs, which may or may not have an effect on the bottom line, depending on the productivity of the more expensive labor. I don't think that many people would believe that Apple would be more profitable if it dropped its retail wages to the legal minimum. And there's no reason to believe that Apple is wrong to think that its results would improve by paying more. (Again, Apple deciding to pay more is much different from a minimum wage increase causing all wages to rise regardless of the productivity or financial well-being of the retailer.)
This is true for employers who don't already offer equivalent benefits; it's not true for all employers. And the effect, again, depends on a lot of factors, not just the cost of labor. Employers that are already optimally staffed may have to eat the cost, since reducing the workforce can lead to lower revenues than paying the same workforce more.
Again, this is too simplistic - you can't just focus on the cost issue without looking at productivity and other factors. In a business affected by a recession (and I'm not sure that Apple would be included in this group), revenue decreases *and* productivity decreases (i.e., if sales drop by 1/3 and staffing levels stay the same, a fully staffed workforce producing 2/3 as much is going to be overall only 2/3 less productive than the same workforce producing at full capacity.
I'm not sure that any of these factors are very relevant to Apple: it doesn't pay minimum wage; it doesn't seem to have suffered from the recession; and it already offers health benefits. These factors are even less relevant to Apple retailers in the UK.
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Americans are superficial because they act nice regardless of what they really think. Europeans are rude because they tell you what they really think, even if you didn't ask. You pays your money and takes your choice.
I agree with this. There is only one Apple store I will continue to shop at in NYC.
They get minimum wage and job security. If Apple can't even match Mcdonald with the job security part, thats just pathetic.
No thats not the case at all. How do you think companies generate profit? They hire the right people for less than the work they produce to generate revenue. The profit the company reaps is from the labor that they underpaid for. People get underpaid all the time. Its just they need the job security to pay bills and just can't quit the job.