Category: Hipster

It’s a time-tested rule-of-thumb that the ones who most loudly proclaim their compassion, open mindedness and altruism are the cruelest, most bigoted and greediest. Silicon Valley proves this rule. The companies that are most supportive of the Democrat Party and most insistent upon “social justice” are the world’s most predatory capitalists and the least tolerant of diversity and dissenting views.

Ben Farrell, an Australian policemen who emigrated to the U.S. to work at Apple, has written an expose on the company’s  cult-like business model and rather inhumane treatment of its workers.

Here is an excerpt from his article: I Quit: What Really Goes On At Apple published on April 6, 2015 on his site Road Less Travelled.

By Ben Farrell

I’ve just escaped the Apple institution. I’ve sent in my resignation, and fled down its bright white corridors curated by crass colourful pictures of iPhones past. I handed in my security pass and in return I was able to re-claim my creativity, individuality and free thinking from the secure Apple cloak room.

Finally now, for the first time in two years, I feel light, creative and inspired. I am again an individual with my own creative ideas, perceptions, values and beliefs. It may take me a while, but from what I believe – I’m now able to express such beliefs again. I am no longer part of the collective  iCult machine whose dirty, worn-out, greasy and naive internal mechanisms of bullying, harassment and mind-games push out shiny and polished iPhones every year. I AM FREE

It is ironic that one of the world’s largest companies and one that prides itself on innovation, creativity and ‘breaking the mould’, operates on such soul limiting entrenched dogma. It’s an organised boys club where perception is valued over substance and tenure over talent. I spent two years in the Apple camp managing customer service improvement for their technical support contact centres and out of the fifteen plus years working in this industry I’ve never witnessed so many bizarre and unprofessional things, only some of which I have time to touch on here.

I found Apple to be a sheltered workshop. The common language spoken being passive aggression, sarcasm and Kool-Aid fuelled stories of ‘success’ designed to manipulate and intimidate naive workers who have never experienced corporate life outside the Apple walls. Like the Chinese emperors believed the forbidden city in Beijing was the centre of the universe and constructed their empire around it, I’m sure that some people at Apple feel the same… Is it a coincidence that the new Apple Campus looks like a giant spaceship? Maybe the plan is for everyone to drink poisoned ‘kool-Aid’ before ascending to the mothership… Sounds like I got out just in time.

Even after-work beers were a strange affair. Drinks with colleagues revolved around the same stories told again and again as drunken management spoke of times when Apple executives made ‘strategic’ decisions to cut jobs and shut down Apple sites so swiftly and carelessly. Like boy-scouts around a campfire, employees eyes would glow and twinkle at this notion of power and embrace these stories with awe but with utter disrespect for the actions Apple has on the broader community of contractors, vendors, partners, resellers and business partners they have bent over a barrel of non-profitability. Remarks such as “… to make a decision that affects so many lives and so many jobs so quickly like that shows the sheer level on which they (Apple executive management) operate… Amazing” were common dialogue around Friday beers. In my opinion a monkey can cut jobs, but at Apple the strangest things are revered.

Sixteen hour days are filled with meetings after meetings followed by more meetings. Whilst this is somewhat standard in most organisations, meetings at Apple wreaked of toxic agendas designed to deliberately trip people up, make fools of the less respected and call people out. Team spirit is non existent as ‘internal customers’ attack individuals and push agendas that satisfy their morning egos. Hours upon hours were wasted in meetings to prepare for meetings in preparation for other meetings to the point where little work actually got done. These rehearsals – called ‘dry runs’ (to me it sounds like something you’d pick up from South East Asian street food) – were meetings to refine impressions and push agendas… how to get the impressions right. How to bend, twist and polish data to tell the story you were instructed to tell… Not the reality the data presents. If a story can’t be forged, the data is excluded.

I had organised a day off recently where all my family were visiting me from interstate. Despite this I had agreed to dial in to one conference call as the audience attending was ‘important’. Well it seems Important but disrespectful, as the audience never even turned up, yet I was still made to ‘dry-run’ the whole meeting from start to finish for an hour and a half as if there was full attendance and interest in what I was saying. So, as the food I had prepared for my family went cold, there I was stuck on the phone role-playing a fake menial meeting to satisfy managements ego.

Sickness, family emergencies, and even weddings are given no respect at Apple. When I started my role I missed one business trip as my wife was pregnant, fell down the stairs and had to be hospitalised – this was listed as a ‘performance issue’ on my record and brought up during a one on one with management as a major ‘miss’ on my behalf. Meetings at midnight were also common place where I was always asked to present something menial (again to be seen), however even then I wasn’t allowed to simply speak to my topic but instead I was fed scripts by management through instant message with countdowns included about how long I had left to speak (“1 min 30 secs left”… “too long…”, “wrap it up”…).

Read more of the Ben Farrell Apple Expose at RoadsLessTraveled.me

Ben Farrell Apple Expose