For some reason I don't feel like Apple suffered a great loss here.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! <sniff> Ah, you youngsters ... I needed a good laugh.
HR works for the company. Their goal is to keep the company out of legal hot water. Any other goal is secondary--solving employee problems doesn't even register.
Should he have stuck it out? Yeah, probably, but there are some bosses that are beyond unacceptable--and the boss was likely to shaft him on a review if he is that bad.
Yes, he should have talked to the contracting company before doing this. That way they would have known to steer their folks clear of that asshole boss--and they could have probably gotten his contract reassigned.
HR is certainly working for the company, but the whole point is that they help mediate issues to avoid litigation. In order to do this, they need to provide as much assistance to employees as possible. In fact, it's in the company's best interest for their HR department to offer as much help as possible to employees.
If a HR department just brushed off complaints, it could be catastrophic for the company if that employee took legal action.
Your view of HR is extremely narrow.
Also, not sure how it works in the US but employers owe their employees a duty of care to protect them from harm and this includes bullying and undue stress.
HR's job is to prevent lawsuits. That means dealing with employee problems-- the earlier the better.
One way they deal with problems is to fire people or terminate contracts. But since this guy was willing to walk out anyway, he had nothing to lose.
There are a lot of negative comments that I find surprisingly imbalanced in how they view the employer-employee relationship.
Employers have the balance of power in almost any working relationship, and should take some responsibility in creating satisfactory employment conditions. Allowing bad management to mishandle employees is an abuse of that power. If a new employee doesn't choose to speak to HR, it's most likely because HR are doing a crap job of making new employees aware of what support they offer, if any.
Apple (the company) certainly wouldn't think for one second about breaching contracts where the benefit outweighed the risk of legal consequences. We might say "that's just business". So, why should you personally care about breaching contracts if turning up to work has such a strongly negative effect on your life?
I personally want to say to this guy: well done, you did the right thing for yourself. Find yourself better employment.
Sorry that this job didn't work out, and I'm sorry it was so bad that you felt you had to take a (small, temporary) hit to your reputation, but if you needed to get out of there so bad, it was worth it: best of luck for the future :)
What exactly was the producer saying? No examples given. Why didn't he even attempt to speak to HR? No reason given. What did his co-workers say about the situation? What was the catalyst for walking out on that particular day? ie. Why not take a day off to consider options?
I had to make a lot of assumptions to fill in the blanks.
From the information given, it sounds like he didn't like his producer and wasn't happy about the commute. Neither of which is remarkable.
No one is being negative because they think doing the right thing for yourself is wrong. It's a matter of common courtesy.
There are a lot of options when you have a crappy boss. The first of which is to actually talk to your boss yourself, and then go over his/her head if they don't respond. If you can't reconcile after that, then feel free to quit, but in my opinion you should do it to someone's face.
Think of notifying HR like filing a bug report or support ticket for broken human behavior.
A new employee must be given sufficient advice/training on how to file a bug report.
Right up until the part where you walked out without trying to talk to your boss, your boss's boss, or your contracting company.
Whether you leave should be a reflection on the work environment. How you leave should be a reflection on you. Better luck next time - perhaps something less corporate?
Yeah, it's funny how that works.
He also complained about the commute and the long hours, but he knew about those and agreed to them before taking the job.
Finally, he makes no mention of trying to speak with HR or the agency that got him the job to resolve the problem. In fact he makes no mention of trying to resolve the problem. Granted he was contract and claimed those who were on contract and rocked the boat faced reprisals, but if you get to the point where you are ready to quit, who cares? try and make it better and if it gets worse, leave like you were going to do anyway.
No, it is not normal for an organization to haze new hires and I am sorry if that is the only behavior you have ever experienced in your career. If you ever find yourself in that kind of environment, you need to transfer to another department or leave the organization. In the case of legal harassment, you may report the individual to HR, even if you are a contractor.
Under proper management, new hires are treated like gold. They are, after all, the future of an organization. New hires would be raised like they were part of a family and an abundance of good will should be provided.
It's a common phenomenon, and "normal" is a problematic criterion in any case. If by consensus people deem it useful as part of a spectrum of acceptable behaviors, then an appeal to "normal" loses all meaning.
I agree with you that people who find it upsetting or demeaning should leave, but by doing so they may pass up an opportunity to change the world. Not all human breakthroughs are accompanied by everyone behaving according to the strictest standards of decorum. Just ask an astronaut -- I'm sure she'll agree.
In an ideal world there wouldn't be office politics either. People would advance on merit. I don't live in an ideal world.
So, I do not think it was a case of misunderstanding.
He would have gotten out of there quickly enough without damaging any other relationships and, being on a term contract, there's a good chance he would have been asked to leave immediately anyway.
The takeaway for entrepreneurs is - hire your managers very carefully, and promote your staff into management roles very, VERY carefully. Just because someone is a great developer/designer/marketer/product manager, does not mean they will make a great manager.
I would have not bothered to send the email that is my only feedback.
Sound familiar?
It should. That's a quote from one of your previous comments.
I guess what I'm most interested in is: does Apple have a way to get rid of bad managers? Amazon doesn't seem to, from what I've heard, and Google has some who become "politically entrenched" and thus hard to eliminate. "Only have great managers" is probably an impossible goal, but some kind of correction process is both necessary and probably a reasonable thing to implement.
Other than the shitty boss, the other problems were silly (hours, commute, meetings). Were you really surprised by the commute? This is something you should've known beforehand.
Some jobs suck, either try to fix it or leave. But don't act like a baby.
You definitely should've spoken with either his supervisor, or even the recruiting company. Apple is a large entity, and even though you didn't enjoy the meetings or the commute, fact is that's how they operate there.
I've had bosses who were like that and worse. One boss would shake my chair when I'm working just to get my attention.
If you take a job and it turns out it isn't what it seems you don't resolve anything by just walking out. Being impulsive rarely gets you anywhere.
That said I've heard from friends that the working environment at Apple is tough.
This guy is an unprofessional whiner, and I would never consider hiring him.
Short list of what annoys me from his article:
- He was hired as a contractor under the retail division, but his overbragging would lead you to believe otherwise.
- As soon as he was picked up as a contractor, he goes and updates everything to allude that he's employed by Apple. As someone who spent my first years also as a contractor (I've since been hired), this is incredibly unprofessional and against the code of ethics. At Apple you learn that you're part of a team, that you are just one piece of the greater picture, so to brag so much when you are such a small and new piece, is incredibly conceited. I would have never let him work on anything secret or prolific - he seems like the guy who would hog all the credit.
- As someone who contracted for over a year, if I had misgivings about my manager, I would have spoken up. If I couldn't have gained the courage to talk with the manager directly, I would have gone to his superiors, or to at least the contact person at the contracting agency. From my experience, Apple's management hierarchy is built to facilitate things like this. I'm sure his boss's boss was around, and all he had to do is speak up if he really had such strong grievances about his treatment.
- I find it hard to believe that he was really worked that hard. Additionally, if he had such strong reservations about wanting to have normal work hours and being home at an early hour, he should not have picked a job that required a 45+ minute commute.
So not only does this guy quit in a wholly unprofessional manner, but now he has the audacity to go all over the Internet to whine about it.
Good luck finding a new job, buddy, at least you have good design chops. But I can't see any corporate company wanting to hire him after this, and I can't imagine he'd have better work hours at a startup.
On a secondary level, someone needs to step up and tell the next level about this type of boss. They probably won't listen, but this boss is hurting others and someone needs to push the first domino.
What's worse, potential clients are going to Google his name, find this and then wonder if he'll bail on a project as well.
"Two weeks" was de rigueur when I started my career - but I am old and the social environment or relationship between capital and labor has changed dramatically in the 25 years I've been in IT. Companies will do whatever they can get away with, even if it might be illegal-ish, and especially if it is a badly run company run by jackasses. Apple... well, I would never take a paycut just to work at Apple; I understand his enthusiasm, and the chance to get "Apple" on your resume, but if the situation was as intolerable as he says, then I certainly wouldn't say "tough it out"
Also, the logic behind two weeks notice was that payroll, in the old days, was two weeks behind the time you've currently spent on the job. So you had to stick around for two weeks to let that catch up (and wrap up projects, transfer knowledge, etc). Logically, at this point, you'd take your unused vacation. That logic doesn't apply anymore - and also contract workers are different than full time employees, so the rules are different.
But he should have spoken to HR at least, or some other boss, if only to get it down on paper exactly why he was going to leave - at least to prevent them from claiming damages or such due to his unexpected departure.
I deduct no points for his walking out without notice. Somehow, I think they will be okay.
