Who's being greedy - Apple for wanting to make more money or the employee for wanting to make more money?
Who gets to decide wages besides the market?
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Apple's Retail Store Staff Compensation Criticized
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Who's being greedy - Apple for wanting to make more money or the employee for wanting to make more money?
Who gets to decide wages besides the market?
Exactly. Those "wealth distribution" and "financial justice" people are really greedy themselves.
"I may have a job that most people can do easily, but you must give me more money! I can't afford the latest iPad! Why don't I get some of the money that Apple made as a result of my selling expertise?"
And the funny part is that I've never even heard of Apple employees complaining. They're probably all Apple fans anyway. It's just the author trying to make some stupid stab against Apple, aiming for money himself. This reminds me of those conspiracy theory videos on YouTube...
How about we bump servers & waitstaff up to minimum wage, and then worry about whether or not people are being paid enough.
From the article:
$750,000 worth of gadget a year translates to $3125 a day translates to about 10-15 iPhones (subsidized price) or three MacBooks in an eight hour shift.
And you don't need to sell anything, you just wait around for people to come to you so you can write them up.
Easiest job in the world.
$750,000 worth of gadget a year translates to $3125 a day translates to about 10-15 iPhones (subsidized price) or three MacBooks in an eight hour shift.
And you don't need to sell anything, you just wait around for people to come to you so you can write them up.
Easiest job in the world.
All it really takes is knowledge about the Apple Retail Store itself. Want a Mac? Go look at that iMac.
Serious question: how many of those applicants were foreign? In nyc I'd bet probably close to 80-90% with the rest of them being highschool or college aged.
The amount of animosity towards people making a livable wage in this country is staggering.
And you know what i am sick and tired of? People like YOU who had a bad youth with a lot of hard work and complaining about other people that want a better life for themselves. YOU should have been the one complaining during your youth and no one would have been in this position today. YOU got screwed over and now YOU want the same **** for people doing the same thing today.
I seriously don't give a **** about how hard you worked during your youth. It does not matter today.
It is like nobody at the nyt knows anything about operating a business.
Imagine a time when the Times was making money, it is hard but pretend. Now imagine people clamoring they need to pay their delivery people more because they are doing so well.
That is not how the world works and it is not how companies pay unskilled labor. The whole thing is absurd.
I am in total support of the raises but how much apple makes per employee is irrelevant. Apple has a lot of things to pay for with that chunk of the pie.
The apple store employees are fairly compensated. The nyt is clealrly staffed by real world experience missing , former blog, writers.
Imagine a time when the Times was making money, it is hard but pretend. Now imagine people clamoring they need to pay their delivery people more because they are doing so well.
That is not how the world works and it is not how companies pay unskilled labor. The whole thing is absurd.
I am in total support of the raises but how much apple makes per employee is irrelevant. Apple has a lot of things to pay for with that chunk of the pie.
The apple store employees are fairly compensated. The nyt is clealrly staffed by real world experience missing , former blog, writers.
If these employees have marketable skills that are in demand, they are more that able to take them to the free marketing and find jobs with higher compensation.
The fact of the matter is there is a large supply of people who have the skills to work at an apple store and little demand.
The fact of the matter is there is a large supply of people who have the skills to work at an apple store and little demand.
This may be harsh, but if a job doesn't require a 4 year degree from a university then you are in no place to negotiate your salary (only exception is if you are a great salesperson). I've worked in retail myself but that is only because I was in college. It was temporary and in no way I was going to make that my career.
Commissioned sales would kill apples retail business. You may think your company does it right but commissioned retail sales mostly makes the customer have a less enjoyable experience.
+1
They applied to work at Apple for a set hourly rate, they have the right to leave for another job or stay. I don't think Apple should be expected to pay them more money, just because the company is making more money. It's retail not rocket science.
More evidence of support for the new order of downward mobility, as if we needed any. It never fails to astonish how many people not only accept it, but endorse it. Again, you should look into the reality of wage redistribution over the past 35 years. The pool of higher wage jobs has shrunk steadily over that time leaving more and more people stranded in poorly-paying, dead end jobs in the service economy.
I don't know where you think $12 an hour is a "living wage." That's less than $25,000 a year. I'd like to know where you could live on that, let alone raise a family. Only a generation ago a single wage-earner could support a family, own a home, have some expectation of upward mobility, and even a pension when they retired -- even without a college education. No more; we count ourselves lucky when two, college-educated wages earners in a household can manage that feat. I am waiting for someone to explain how that's a change for the better, instead of feeding us more crypto-libertarian pablum.
I worked at the Apple Store for nearly 5 years. Benefits are only paid to qualified full-time employees. I was paid 'ok' for working a retail gig - I was the highest paid specialist there when I left - at $10.59/hr. For a year, I was working full-time - the life insurance benefits are great. Nice health plan. It goes bye-bye as soon as you go back to part-time. I had a full-time job when I started working at Apple part-time - then got laid off and went full-time, then went back to part-time once I got another better paying full-time job. I was being paid more when I worked full time as a Genius Admin, but then had to accept a pay cut when I went back as a part-time specialist.
Employees at the Apple Store are not like the minions that roam the aisles at Walmart or Fry's. While there are the occasional dingdongs that work there, they don't last long. There is constant training available and I availed myself to all of it... much of it available only at the store using the back-of-house Intranet. I have 2 college degrees - and while there are a number of 18 year old kids working there, the store I worked at had folks in their 70s working there, too. Many had degrees, some PhDs. At one time, there were 2 employees who had won Tony awards. Another who had an Emmy.
People I worked with had produced albums (and not some kids garage band), made independent films - an incredible volume of knowledge. Employees don't make commission, so the motivation is to give your knowledge to a customer so that they can trust you and make the best decision on buying some very expensive equipment.
While employees don't earn commission, there are constant updates by managers on how your sales are doing. I was one of the top sales people in the store when I left. Yes - some people walk in knowing what they want (I'm that kind of person) and walk out with it sans employee - but I turned a number of iPod sales into iMac sales once a Windows user allowed me to perform a demo. I left the Apple Store because it is a hectic work environment (often packed and noisy) with rarely a raise. By the time I paid tolls and spent gas to drive to work and back home, I wasn't making a lot of money at the end of the day and I preferred working 5 days a week instead of 7.
I've seen a lot of stellar employees leave the store that were true assets to Apple, simply because they weren't paid enough to be tempted to stay a little longer. This is a true shame, because the more long-term employees are great mentors for the newbies.
When on the floor demonstrating a machine, I knew who was more savvy in GarageBand, Logic or FCP, for example - so if someone wanted a demo on software that I didn't use much, I could point them to a real pro at it.
As far as stock buys - yes, you can buy stock, but:
1.) the price is 85% of the average price in a 6 month period
2.) the maximum you can spend is 10% of your earnings in that 6 months
So - at the current price of the stock, it is out of reach for most employees to get even 1 share in that time period. I did well - getting stock at $40/share at the time... I don't see how anyone who isn't working full-time can afford more than a couple of shares after a year.
It is a great place to work, but also exhausting and not a zero-skill job like working retail at say Kohl's. You really need to know the products, all the price points, how the warranties work (and don't), all the accessories, most of the software, etc. - and things are always changing. Programs and policies regularly changed every quarter.
It is a free country and no one forced me at gun point to work there - I was dying to work there... loved it... but at the end of the day, it didn't make fiscal sense for me to continue working there. I support Apple paying whatever they feel is fair- but if they paid a bit more, I'd still be there.
Employees at the Apple Store are not like the minions that roam the aisles at Walmart or Fry's. While there are the occasional dingdongs that work there, they don't last long. There is constant training available and I availed myself to all of it... much of it available only at the store using the back-of-house Intranet. I have 2 college degrees - and while there are a number of 18 year old kids working there, the store I worked at had folks in their 70s working there, too. Many had degrees, some PhDs. At one time, there were 2 employees who had won Tony awards. Another who had an Emmy.
People I worked with had produced albums (and not some kids garage band), made independent films - an incredible volume of knowledge. Employees don't make commission, so the motivation is to give your knowledge to a customer so that they can trust you and make the best decision on buying some very expensive equipment.
While employees don't earn commission, there are constant updates by managers on how your sales are doing. I was one of the top sales people in the store when I left. Yes - some people walk in knowing what they want (I'm that kind of person) and walk out with it sans employee - but I turned a number of iPod sales into iMac sales once a Windows user allowed me to perform a demo. I left the Apple Store because it is a hectic work environment (often packed and noisy) with rarely a raise. By the time I paid tolls and spent gas to drive to work and back home, I wasn't making a lot of money at the end of the day and I preferred working 5 days a week instead of 7.
I've seen a lot of stellar employees leave the store that were true assets to Apple, simply because they weren't paid enough to be tempted to stay a little longer. This is a true shame, because the more long-term employees are great mentors for the newbies.
When on the floor demonstrating a machine, I knew who was more savvy in GarageBand, Logic or FCP, for example - so if someone wanted a demo on software that I didn't use much, I could point them to a real pro at it.
As far as stock buys - yes, you can buy stock, but:
1.) the price is 85% of the average price in a 6 month period
2.) the maximum you can spend is 10% of your earnings in that 6 months
So - at the current price of the stock, it is out of reach for most employees to get even 1 share in that time period. I did well - getting stock at $40/share at the time... I don't see how anyone who isn't working full-time can afford more than a couple of shares after a year.
It is a great place to work, but also exhausting and not a zero-skill job like working retail at say Kohl's. You really need to know the products, all the price points, how the warranties work (and don't), all the accessories, most of the software, etc. - and things are always changing. Programs and policies regularly changed every quarter.
It is a free country and no one forced me at gun point to work there - I was dying to work there... loved it... but at the end of the day, it didn't make fiscal sense for me to continue working there. I support Apple paying whatever they feel is fair- but if they paid a bit more, I'd still be there.
Complaining? LOL. More like self-defense.
And of course it matters how hard I worked! Otherwise I could've ended up on the other side of the fence, complaining about how poor I am on an internet forum.
Oh no no no.....maybe that came off wrong, I was a little tipsy last night. EVERYONE is equal and has a chance to make it. What I mean is this falls into the attitude of "poor me" and the occupiers. Blaming someone else because they aren't as far as they'd like to be. Here's a company making lots of cash and the retail employees not getting it in return. It does say they make more than most retail and....it's retail.
Just another hack job from NYT
What's NYT paying it's employees? I mean the one in the print room, loading docks or newspaper delivery people? Oh, that's right they out source those to 3rd party companies so they don't have to pay them what they are worth.
NYT, get off your high horse!
What's NYT paying it's employees? I mean the one in the print room, loading docks or newspaper delivery people? Oh, that's right they out source those to 3rd party companies so they don't have to pay them what they are worth.
NYT, get off your high horse!
You actually believe that pure hard work pays of? You just need a minute to look into the world and compare people who "work hard" with people who work smart to see that simply is not true.
RANT MODE ON People are very aware of the reasons for the downfall. Do you think it is a coincidence that the Wall Street boys are the biggest contributor to the campaigns of democrats, and it is those same democrats that have enabled a society who want want want with policies that hand out money from the evil rich ppl? Yet during this same 35 years you spoke of the more of downward mobility has increased? During this time as more and more of the beloved "we're here to help" policies also were increased the shift from manufacturing to service based industry increased because the highest 1st world corporate taxes allowed up and coming economies like India and China to price themselves more attractively. I do not find this a coincidence. RANT MODE OFF
On topic however Harris Teeter pays its clerks between 8-11 / hr according to length of time and job performance, this is most retail jobs. So if Apple employees make 12/hr and even higher for genius bar etc they are in the top percentiles for paying their employees. You want more pay for less enjoyment work somewhere else. And if you wanna say you need more skills to work there go get them. School to learn those skills too expensive... see RANT MODE above just substitute economy for education...
It's a retail job, regardless of how much profit the company generates.
Here's a little perspective: at retail pharmacy chains (CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, etc.) in the US, pharmacists (I am one) are well compensated; the pharmacy technicians, who do the vast majority of the grunt work and interface with the customers, start at slightly above minimum wage. These are the folks who are filling your medication and they get less pay than the clerk selling your Mac. By the same token, the pharmacy chains can certainly afford to pay the techs better, but they don't.
Here's a little perspective: at retail pharmacy chains (CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, etc.) in the US, pharmacists (I am one) are well compensated; the pharmacy technicians, who do the vast majority of the grunt work and interface with the customers, start at slightly above minimum wage. These are the folks who are filling your medication and they get less pay than the clerk selling your Mac. By the same token, the pharmacy chains can certainly afford to pay the techs better, but they don't.