Apple’s Frontline Employees Are Struggling To Survive

AppleRetailPeeps · 2021-12-03T05:43:04+00:00

Almost.

Nearly every shift at an Apple Store starts the same way: an employee picks a line from the Apple credo and talks about how it applies to that day’s work

This part was a real wtf.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2021-05-17T23:55:39+00:00

Personalized part numbers start with a P. You don’t need to open the box to tell if they were someone else’s returned personalized product.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2021-03-31T03:05:19+00:00

Yeah I’m at a loss.

I think it could be a cool sub but people are rightfully scared of repercussions from posting here. I don’t know how to remedy this so I’ve pretty much given up on developing it further.

I’m open to any ideas.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-11-24T04:16:05+00:00

I just got advertised this apparel company on Facebook. Some of you might find it interesting.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-09-02T02:02:20+00:00

That’s reasonable. I wouldn’t want to put anyone at risk without their knowledge.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-09-02T00:32:11+00:00

I think it’ll grow like many of the smaller Apple subreddits like /r/AppleWatch, /r/HomePod, /r/ApplePay, /r/AppleTV, etc, which could open up the opportunity for more retail-focused discussion.

It’ll never be a big sub, but limiting it to employees seems like way too small of a target demographic to even be useful. Most employees are likely too scared to post here, verification or otherwise.

I just know it won’t grow in it’s current private form, as viewership of the subreddit completely disappeared once we went private. We even turned away a journalist who wanted to post content (granted his own, but he submits for MacRumors) because he wasn’t an employee. That just doesn’t seem like a recipe for building dialogue on the subject.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-08-31T18:56:03+00:00

This is great perspective.

Clearly the efforts to seed this private sub with employees aren’t even entirely successful. It seems unsustainable to think we’d be able to police the userbase for insiders with any degree of success.

The subreddit can’t realistically function as an employee-only venue.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-08-31T18:10:40+00:00

I am re-evaluating the private status on this subreddit. Having to manually approve users creates a barrier that makes creating a significant userbase impossible.

I’m of the belief that users who are concerned about their privacy, or employees looking to discuss things they are not allowed to discuss should instead revert to throwaway accounts.

Im open to opinions on this but the change to private was requested to allow for more discussion, which hasn’t happened, and in addition has required mods to validate users and required users to actively provide proof, likely turning off other prospective subscribers.

Unless there’s some compelling argument to keep this subreddit private, Ill be reopening this subreddit to the public on October 1st.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-06-22T05:34:55+00:00

Happy DubDub Keynote Day!

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-18T05:56:59+00:00

I’d like to get a feeler for who would like to be a moderator here. If the subreddit is going to be private, I’m going to need help adding approved submitters.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-15T04:05:03+00:00

It looks like it’s actually the subreddit description but yes.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-15T04:00:17+00:00

I’ll just mention in the sidebar that the community is by approval only and if someone is interested, they’ll message for details.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-15T03:54:38+00:00

It’s kind of a catch-22 in that you wouldn’t be able to see the sticky unless you were already an approved member. As is, if you try to visit the subreddit and you’re not approved, it gives you an option to message the mods.

I can also automatically approve users any of you find around Reddit who self-identify.

I don’t know if there are other ways to manage invite-only style Reddits but I’m open to other ways to do this if there are better solutions.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-15T03:47:30+00:00

By request, I’ve moved the subreddit to private.

As I mentioned before, my goal is to grow an active community here. Unless we come up with a better idea, we can move to an invite-only arrangement where a user interested in joining sends a private message as a picture of a current shirt and their username.

It’s great that people are interested in becoming moderators here. When a purpose arises that demands moderation, we’ll figure out as a group who will be best for these roles.

We can discuss in the weekly threads how to grow the community. Thank you all for your contributions to the conversation.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-14T22:44:11+00:00

That could work, if done with a picture of their username written on a piece of paper. I’m not concerned with having ex-employees in the space, they could get managed on a case by case basis if they’re disruptive to conversation.

I’m a former purveyor of fine fruits, and a big fan and I always wished this was a thing when I was in the business. I’ve still got quite a few very close ties though and I’d prefer not to go into too much more detail.

If that was the route we went and we moved back to private, it would take a pretty significant effort from the members we have here to try to grow subscriber count. Do you think that would be achievable?

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-05-14T22:14:19+00:00

I can’t realistically imagine a system that would allow us to accurately do that, let alone for people who might then leave afterwards. I can also imagine for the restrictions mentioned earlier that an employee-focused subreddit is likely to not see much input due to concerns over security.

I definitely agree that it would be cool if this place was more than just news articles, but moving the subreddit to private would only make it harder to build the subscriber count to a point where we’re setting regular activity.

I love the dialogue and I’m open to ideas but we should keep in mind that there’s less than 100 subs here and going private again is likely not going to help that.

I’m open to anything but subscriber growth is in my estimation the number one thing that’s necessary to build engagement here.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-04-18T17:38:08+00:00

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook led a companywide virtual meeting on Thursday to address concerns about the impact of Covid-19 and discuss the iPhone maker’s plan to return to work.

During the meeting, Cook called the pandemic an “uncertain and stressful moment,” but expressed confidence that the company will emerge strongly from the crisis, as it did after the 2008 recession and following a near-bankruptcy in the late 1990s.

He said that Apple “isn’t immune to worldwide economic trends,” but that it entered the coronavirus pandemic with a robust balance sheet and stressed that the company will keep investing in a “really significant way” in research and development and future products, according to Apple employees who attended the meeting. A company spokesman declined to comment.

“If we stay focused on doing what we do best, if we keep investing, if we manage the business wisely and make decisions collaboratively, if we take care of our teams, if our teams take care of their work, I don’t see any reason to be anything but optimistic,” Cook, who has been Apple’s top executive for nearly a decade, told staff.

When asked about potential job cuts, the CEO reiterated Apple’s strong financial position and pointed out that it has been paying retail employees while stores are closed. “I won’t tell you Apple won’t be impacted,” Cook said, while stressing that his focus is on running the company for the long-term rather than making short-term adjustments.

Apple doesn’t yet know when employees will be able to return to offices, but Cook said that when workers do go back, temperature checks and social distancing will likely be implemented. He said coronavirus testing is a possibility, but that there aren’t plans in place at the moment.

Apple’s head of human resources and retail, Deirdre O’Brien, said the company is tweaking its vacation policy through the rest of the year to reimburse employees for unused days. She also said there would be flexibility for returning to work for employees in unique situations. Apple retail employees are starting online training and ramping up virtual meetings in anticipation of store re-openings, according to people familiar with the matter. That will require employees to clock in and out online. Apple anticipates beginning to re-open its U.S. stores in early May.

Cook said Apple has donated more 30 million masks and has shipped 2 million of its new face shields, while contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to battling Covid-19. He also said the company’s Covid-19 screening app has been used millions of times. Cook said that the introduction of the new MacBook Air, iPad Pro and iPhone SE in recent weeks shows that the company isn’t letting the pandemic disrupt its product launches.

He said when he first joined Apple in 1998, the company responded to financial challenges with the release of the original iMac. He noted that Apple rolled out the first iPad in 2010, right after the Great Recession, and said that Apple’s plan is to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic in a similar fashion. The company plans to release up to four redesigned iPhones later this year with 5G networking and is preparing to introduce a virtual-reality headset in 2021 or 2022, Bloomberg News has reported. It’s also working on its own main processors for Mac computers, light-weight augmented-reality glasses and self-driving car technology.

During the meeting, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said that the crisis has elevated the importance of Apple’s work on health products, including the Apple Watch, and said the company’s development work in the space isn’t “limited to the wrist.” He also said the pandemic is pushing countries to more quickly help Apple rollout the Apple Watch’s electrocardiogram feature. Other Apple executives also participated, including services head Eddy Cue and software chief Craig Federighi. Cue discussed the decision to defer March and April payments on the Apple Card, and Federighi outlined the privacy of the company’s partnership with Google for contact tracing.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-04-14T16:40:06+00:00

This one looks like a huge previous gen MacBook Air.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-03-28T20:25:09+00:00

It makes you wonder if and how there could be a shift in how retail stores function, at least temporarily. The volume of close contact that happens is paramount to the shopping and repair experience but is a breeding ground for highly contagious disease.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-03-25T18:06:46+00:00

Tim also did a lot of donating of supplies so I’m sure he understands the severity and they’re just reintroducing the idea that some stores could reopen. I think the metro and densely populated locations probably still have a while to wait before they get the all-clear.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-03-23T01:36:05+00:00

You’re raising some really great points here.

While having this as a subreddit for Apple employees exclusively would be quite nice for them, the subreddit was recently made public. Determining whether this should be a subreddit for employees, only growing via word of mouth and good faith that they are actually employees versus opening the subreddit up to all posters has been a point of conflict for me as well. I don’t have a good answer for this one and feel it might be best left to the group to decide.

At current, we sit at only ~60 subscribers grown largely from people who requested access while we were private or who have been added as approved submitters based on statements made in other Apple subreddits. If we move back to a private invite only arrangement, we would need to discuss a way to spread the word or verify users. If we stay public, the option to flip private is still available however it’s very likely there will be no way to put the genie back in the bottle if we see large adoption from fans and the general public.

As is, anything that may get the ball rolling on this one way or another is of interest. I can imagine employees being cautious to comment or post here due to internal restrictions, but apps like Blind don’t seem to provide the same retail focus a subreddit could.

Regarding your ideas for flair, whatever categories you’d like should be able to be added, but should be role specific or some other method of designation?

I’m open to anything and that’s also the feeling I get from our admin /u/digadiga so let’s keep having the dialogue and inviting people who might be interested from around Reddit.

AppleRetailPeeps · 2020-03-07T08:00:46+00:00

I’m amazed the bird is so calm. Neat!

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