Ex-AppleCare Employee Describes Life Inside Apple

ahknight writes "A former AppleCare employee writes about his time in Apple. From the article: 'I remember when I first started at Apple they had a picture in the training class of some guy in flip-flops, shorts, and a tropical shirt in a decorated cube with a goofy grin, the message being: it's casual. One fellow even went as far as pushing that to the reasonable limit by showing up to work every day for several months in a bathrobe and sandals (and shorts). I don't recall a word ever being said. I think he actually just gave up because no one said anything.'"

little Apple

This is basically any IT / Helpdesk employee's story, not a lot of "inside Apple" info here. And the guy sucked at it because the most important part of being a good support guy/girl is to be able to get the customer to trust you and let you help them, EVEN if they're total bastards and very mad because something does not work.

Knowlegde and understanding of tech is just 50% of the support-job, knowledge and understanding of people is the rest.

Re:little Apple

and you know this how, exactly? Did he ever take a support incident from you?

He didn't actually have to interact directly with the guy to know what he's like at support - after all the guy wrote a long article describing his experiences. Perhaps after reading the following in TFA:

It's hard enough to have to change your dialect of stupid for every person that calls in,

The GP thought that the guy who wrote the story had a bit of contempt for his customers? I hope that attitude is not typical for Apple Support (but judging by my experience with the "Geniuses" I would say it is).

Re:little Apple

Just like you think Mac users are whiney fan-boys because you come into contact with a lot of them, anyone in tech support thinks that users are stupid at tech, because they come into contact with a lot of them.

And just as the larger group of Mac users are just normal people doing their thing, the larger group of computer users are normal people doing their thing.

Ask *anyone* in tech support, in any business. I've asked a few in different businesses and the answer's always the same.

This blog poster's attitude is nothing unusual.

Re:little Apple

How could fellow tech support callers be your best customer? You have no idea if they are a fellow tech support person or not.

A month ago I had to call cox about my cable modem and I dreaded making the call, knowing that I was going to be treated to someone with less than half my knowlege.

My connection would just die after any type data would transfer. It could be replicated within a seconds of loading up counter-strike or downloading a file. After much tests I concluded that either my cable modem was going bad, or their line had issues.

Sir, do you have a home network.
Yes.
Sir, first of all, it is not our network, it is your network with the problem.
Lady, I disconnected from the network and am currently directly connected to the cable modem.
Ok sir, what browser do you use.
Opera.
Sir, we don't support Opera
Lady, I have Firefox and IE, I assume you want me to use IE, pretend I never said Opera.
How often do you clear your temporary internet files?
Lady, I just want to play counter-strike, I never use IE, so I don't clear the temp files.
Sir, we don't support games
Ok, forget I said counter-strike, would you like me to go clear my temp files now?
Please.
Ok, that was fast, now what? I still can't download more than a few KB of that linux ISO.

(we continued with other newbie crap such as my connection settings, firewall, manage add-ins, if I have any 'strange icons next to the clock', etc, etc...)

Sir, I am in your modem right now and all the levels look good
I start a download and connection dies, she says she is still in my modem.
Your modem is fine, I am connected to it and all levels look good.
It looks good??? my internet JUST died. Lady, I need to get off the phone, click

I go to best buy, buy a new cable modem, call them up and give them my new info and my problems are now gone.

What good was my knowledge? Even though I know a thing or two, I was treated like I knew nothing.

Re:little Apple

Not necessarily. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone could give exemplary customer service and still be able to bitterly complain after hours. Those who cannot blow off steam don't last long. If you ever work a job where you have to spend any substantial amount of time dealing with jerks, you need to be able to blow off steam appropriately. Doing so in a blog, especially after you've left, is appropriate.

In fact, I have a method for getting excellent customer service when I call Apple, or some other tech company. One of the first things out of my mouth is, "I'm one of those total idiots, but I promise I won't yell at you." This usually gets at least a giggle. Then I actually make two minutes of small talk. No shit! I don't drag it out any further, but I want to get at least a tiny feel for whom I'm talking to.

Next, I outline my problem. I have ready any pertinent information (model #, OS version, etc.). I have notes about what steps I've already taken. Then I go through whatever steps the service rep has in their three ring binder (or modern equivalent). When none of those steps solve the problem, they send me a box to send in my laptop. I thank the rep, and ask for their manager's email address, so I can send praise. And I do so.

I've never called Apple with a software problem. It's always been hardware. Software I can solve on my own. They've been nothing but top notch in solving my hardware problems, going above and beyond, fixing things that I didn't expect to be covered by Applecare (dented case, cigarette burns on the keyboard).

As I said, Applecare has been top notch, in my experience. This might be because of pure dumb luck or it might be because I treat the rep as I would want to be treated if I was in their shoes. My attitude is, "How can I help the rep (to help me)." I've heard a few horror stories, and I attribute those to either bad luck, or the customer being a cocksucker.

Re:little Apple

I used to work at tech support for some big name appliance manufacturer, and I'd vent a little, mostly to fellow workers.

At least with appliances, its not really a matter of being stupid, since the interface has been the same for generations.

Still, we'd get the crazies, (for good service, don't threaten the serviceman with a gun) and the entitled (My warantee is a year expired, but I want free service!) or those who think that everything's our fault (Wait, you mean if its a user error, the warantee's not going to cover it and I'll have to paaaaaaaaay? Thats horrible!).

Face it, People suck. Tech support has to deal with these people, and it only gets worse as the gadgets get more complicated and hard to use. The only people who have it worse than Tech support is billing, because frankly you've not heard the meaning of pissed till someone has problems dealing with money.

That being said, we do our job. Our job is to be nice, helpful, understanding. How long do you think anyone would last if they showed their contempt to every customer who called up? I'd say a week, tops. People can tell, and people don't like it. They call your manager, and then you get written up.

I treated every one of my calls like it was my problem, and I probably had one of the worst track times in the whole building. There were still things I couldn't do for the customer, still problems that I had to say "sorry, we don't cover that", and you know, it sucks, but thats not our call.

Re:little Apple

One of the things I get to do at work (computer sales shop) is answer tech questions on the phone. I actually very rarely get a hostile customer, and in those cases they usually either don't stay hostile for long or they realize I don't own a Magic Wand and go away. Most of the customers I deal with are the clueless, they call with basic computer questions that carry their own special brand of frustration. There are also the variety that are cluess AND think that your entire day has been reserved for providing phone support for them. "hi I just bought my first computer and a printer, can you show me how to make christmas cards?" Those questions really do happen. We try to draw the line at 5 minutes of phone support. Any more than that, and they have four choices: bring it in, have us come out, send out a professional instructor we reference (much cheaper than sending out a tech) or keep trying to figure it out yourself.

All in all most of the tech support calls I take are short and productive, and quickly resolve the customer's questions. The part that takes the longest time is just figuring out exactly what new and creative thing the customer has found he can do with/to the computer. After long enough you can guess pretty quickly what the issue is. My favorite: "Every time I click my mouse a little window opens up". "Take the book off your keyboard". "What?" "Take the BOOK off your KEYBOARD." "The what? .... oh, that works! How did you know I had a book sitting on the corner key on my keyboard?" "You're not the first." Now consider that call took 20 seconds. Now guess how long the FIRST one of those calls took? (hint: I broke my 5 minute rule more than once)

Re:little Apple

This is basically any IT / Helpdesk employee's story, not a lot of "inside Apple" info here. And the guy sucked at it because the most important part of being a good support guy/girl is to be able to get the customer to trust you and let you help them, EVEN if they're total bastards and very mad because something does not work.

Then again, there is a limit, and if you work for the right company, a properly defined one. Nevertheless, judging FTA, this guy makes the same classic mistake tons of helldesk employees do, which is to confuse the concept of "intelligence" with "knowledge about computers". It never ceases to amaze me how underpaid geeks somehow can't get it into their skulls that the guy is not stupid, he's a bloody doctor/lawyer/diplomat/you name it, for crying out loud. Perhaps someday they'll turn the tables and when a guy like this walks into a doctor's office the good ol' doc will expect him to know whether he's running a beta version of his appendix.

Re:little Apple

...confuse the concept of "intelligence" with "knowledge about computers"

Agree. Totally.

As a programmer, I think that *all* programmers have to spend some time supporting customers on some stuff. Or at least read articles like this or talk to tech support from time to time. Not for the amusement ("hey, they are stupid") part, but in order to better understand how usual people see computers, in order to be able to adopt software to their views/habits.

This mostly applies to UI designers/developoers, but every software component has its human users, and knowing these users is a key point in creating a successful application.

Excellent quote

Perhaps OT:

If something is important to you, you spend money to make it reliable. If you cannot make it reliable, then you make it redundant.

Obligatory

Oh, and next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day... so, you know, if you want to you can go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.

*embarrassed silence*

I rock, all else sucks.

Hello and welcome to my blog. Just want to whine about how I work in a crappy job I think I am too good for. Not only am I too good for the job, I am way better than everyone else there. Which explains why I have not risen so fast to the top of the company that the resultant nosebleed is dripping onto Steve Jobs' hair (which is a toupe, by the way - YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST FROM THE BEST GUY IN THE WORLD).

Not only am I great at everything, I am such a cold chap that I make everybody else cry due to my brilliance. I would laugh at their weakness but hey...I am just too cool.

Urgh.

What is the difference between this guy and waiters who snigger at customers who choose bad wine? The former has a blog, that's what.

I am now going to go click on his Google ads a couple of hundred thousand times and have his account suspended for click fraud. He made me waste four and a half years reading his Maddox-style crap.

Re:I rock, all else sucks.

I agreee. I stopped reading just about here:

"I worked in Austin's AppleCare center for four and a half years as a desperation move"

Uh, four and a half months is a desperation move. Anything over a year, and you've given up. And as someone who has a bit of call center experience (I gave up for a while too), I've seen my share of these guys. The ones who will use every possible acronym and technical name for stuff as possible (and usually get it completely wrong) when dealing with the customer. And if you're one of those people, and can't understand why the customers never seem to rate their call with you "Very Satisfied", imagine this:

You take your car into the mechanic. Now what is the first thing that comes into your head when he starts talking about this joint, that gasket, and wing nuts and what not. You may happen to know exactly what he's talking about, but most of us don't, and our first thought it, "This guy's trying to screw me".

Now imagine a guy trying to explain the windows NT TCP/IP stack to grandma... Wonder what she'll rate him when the survey monkey comes a calling...

Re:I rock, all else sucks.

What is the difference between this guy and waiters who snigger at customers who choose bad wine? The former has a blog, that's what.

Well, presumably the waiter also knows something about wine.

You've convinced me not to bother with this story when becomes deslashdotted. But jeez, what do you expect? Blogs are all about vanity. And yet people love this shit. That is what bothers me.

Shame the same can't be said for apple re-sellers

I worked for two years at an apple re-seller dealing with support and sales. I can honestly say that the casual 'easy' lifestyle never made it to there..

I'm just about to start legal procedings against my former manager!

All of the Apple representatives that came to check up on 'us' as well didn't seem to have inherited the casual lifestyle either .. stiff as a board.

Article text (server slow)

You can only work in a technical service position for a limited amount of time before it loses its luster and shine, and you start to follow. Once you've performed a job for several years, you get into the groove and know how it's done. The knowledge is all there, somewhere, and it becomes routine to just look it up and spit it out on demand. You keep doing this, time and again, and eventually become a fixture: unchanging, unmoving, static.

The problems compound when this job involves the general public. Any technical job that involves helping masses of uncensored human beings understand technology will eventually wear the average man down, causing him to go bat-shit crazy and scream at the top of his lungs while trying to take out a swath of them with a surprise barrage of old SCSI cards. The largest catalyst for such violent behavior and general mental breakdown is best described by stating, simply, that most people exist at a significant intellectual delta from that burnt-out husk of a technology worker.

This doesn't have to pose a problem in an ideal world. In an ideal world, common people would be willing to accept advice from anyone capable of delivering it. In this real world, however, half of those that acknowledge that they need such assistance will turn violently against anyone they seek help from with such winning phrases as: "What do you think I am, stupid?" In most of the remaining cases, the user is a support vampire [slash7.com] and that simply ruins those willing to try and help as badly as being berated for offering the answer. This behavior is evident in forums, mailing lists, in person, and most especially on the phone with technical support.

As a technical support agent, you develop mental calluses that help you move on and through the chaff and treasure the customers that are amiable, acknowledge that they need help, and are happy with the answer they're given. Genuinely happy. A good number of calls are actually like that and make the job bearable. A similar number are very, very far from it.

However, the core reason of why I recently quit my job in AppleCare is that in commodity technical jobs there's only so far you can go before you arrive at the end of the career path for the masses of technical agents and hit the lid where only five or ten pass upwards. Ever. When you get there, you have two choices for moving ahead: wait for the person in the cushy job you want to leave or die to make room and pray that it's you among the masses that applied that gets it, or move ahead elsewhere. After waiting for someone to bite it in a freak keyboarding accident for four years, it was time to go with Plan B.

So one day, when I had a life outside of the company set up and ready, I walked up to my manager and said: iQuit.

Bitchman Begins

I worked in Austin's AppleCare center for four and a half years as a desperation move after a programming gig decided they'd rather give it a go without me several months earlier and my severance and unemployment checks stopped paying the bills. I've used a Mac since I had control over my mousing finger, so performing remedial technical support for Macs was an obvious choice for some quick money. Mac OS X 10.1 had just come out a few months previous, which was the only free upgrade Apple has ever released for Mac OS X as it was mostly an apology to those that bought Mac OS X 10.0. The PowerBook Titanium was the king of the road, until you opened it the 333rd time and the hinge decided it was time to move on in life. There were other Apple products, but I didn't care because those were the two I was told I supported at the time.

The job was remarkably easy, but it had been a long time since I'd done phone support, so I had a lot to learn on the procedural side. They have a shortish training course that they put all new-hires through that taught them how to use iMovie, what an iPod was (the 5GB bricks, at the time), and how to troubleshoot Mac OS 9 (no one was

Oh it's "this guy"

The "better" one. Frack. A dime a dozen in tech supprt. Sorry, dude, but the reason your career didn't advance is because you didn't have the people skills to climb the ladder.

How many of us here have done tech support as a full time gig? I bet the show of hands is impressive. How many realized it was time to move on, not just from the job, but from the "customerz R teh st00pitz" attitude as well?

No? Haven't figured that out yet? Enjoy your time in the middle.

There's always one, or more, of those guys who feel that they have been given the shaft. They're just so good technically but they can't seem to put a career together. Why? It' must be dumb luck and conspiracy. "I don't get promoted because [manager|company|god] is threatened by my skill, or because they are short sighted, or because maybe I didn't take a shower this month".

Those of you who have your eyes upwards, or elsewhere know who I'm talking about. Those who are this guy will not realize it.

Re:Oh it's "this guy"

That said, a decade in support will wear on a person.

Tell me about it. My dad worked most of his life in process control. Building networks in mines and factories. I am sure he had a lot of fun cruising the world with a toolbox and an ethernet analyser and being shot at in PNG.

Now the local branch of his company has turned into a phone support operation and it is totally the wrong type of work for him. He knows his stuff technically but the job is too structured for him. A 63 year old tech shouldn't have to take X number of calls per hour or get carpeted by management.

So he is retiring soon and I am trying to set him up with a business fixing valve amplifiers. He is old enough to have started out on valves and they have come back into fashion. If I had known he was being made to do this kind of work I would have been pursuading him to get out before his heart attack, not after.

Re:Oh it's "this guy"

I was only part time, but it was while I was in college. I worked phone tech support for a major computer manufacturer.

Despite being more knowledgeable and more helpful to customers, I was passed by for 'promotion' (if you call it that... the place sucked) several times. Poeple that knew a LOT less and usually just messed up my customer if I had to get a second opinion on something.

Until 1 day, the seating arrangement changed. I ended up sitting right next to the head of our area. I said good morning every morning and suddenly I was 'backup team lead' about a month later. Another month later, another seating rearrangement, and for the next 2-3 months, I remained 'backup' and people who had never even been backup were promoted to full team lead.

At the time, it stuck in my craw that I had to 'suck up' (even tho I was just being my normal self at the time I was promoted, I'd have had to go out of my way to be nice under the new seating) to the boss (female, if that matters) to get anywhere.

I was only there 6 months, but I learned a LOT about politics in the workplace. Geeks tend not to do well with it, but it's worth the time to look into so you at least know why thse things are happening to you.

Wait...

Work for a company that markets to (and apparently, hires) unreasonable elitist snobs, and then have the nerve to be surprised and hurt when they whine like unreasonable elitist snobs?

It's not like anybody twisted this gomer's arm to become an Apple employee, nor continue the pain of cashing those regular checks for 4 years...

The telling point is that, even after all of his tale of woe, he's still an elitist snob going to work in an Apple-only software shop. Here's hoping when his gear breaks, he gets support from someone just. like. him.

Seemed Like He Was Spot on To Me

The blog entry seemed pretty reasonable to me. He was in a job for a long time, got stale, realised it and got out for greener pastures. Lots of technical people do that, and it's a good thing for them.

I particularly liked the part where the bozo with the "mission critical" computer didn't back it up. If it's mission critical, you have redundancy. If you don't have redundancy, it's not mission critical - you've already decided you can survive without it.

gals?

One fellow even went as far as pushing that to the reasonable limit by showing up to work every day for several months in a bathrobe and sandals (and shorts).

Just out of curiocity, did u guys have females in your team?

I am thinking of changin' my job.

I call BS on this

The writer of that blog entry is obviously a native english speaker. There's no way he worked in tech support.

life after apple?

Pfft, harmless.

OTOH, life after slashdot seems to prove rather difficult for the site.

Since when does whiny former help-desk employee...

Become /. front page material?

Just wondering.

Yes

That is the Apple way, folks. Robes, sandals, beach sand. Cars, guitars, sex, and teenager violence...

You are free to sweat in your Business Bhurka and eventually choke on your tie when it gets stuck in your Dell lapstop, but remember you had a choice.

He is right, and here's why

Even though it was way too long, I actually read the good article. The guy is a bit of whiner, but then again he is pretty much spot on. People don't take good care of their computers or data. The (consumer-level) machines are cheaply made in sweatshops in China, by underpaid, expendable, poor people. The whole world has turned to shit. So, I agree with him: if your data and computer is mission-critical, for god's sake have a backup system.

Turning up in a bath robe is not the best way

Turning up in a bath robe for work is taking it to the extreme. May be it was a PR exercise on the employees behalf. Any way it is really good to have such loose dress code at work. Ultimately, people should be alowed to wear what they are most comfortable in rather than insisting on a particular attire to bring uniformity at the work place.

Would you like fries with that?

Whatever, tech support is the IT equivalent of working in McDonalds. The only difference is how much knowledge you're expected to bring to the table. I'm sure there's some attainable goal of a satisfying tech support role, but it must be prohibitively costly and difficult to implement, since even Apple evidently functions just like all the rest when it comes to support workers.

The pay, conditions, level of respect you receive, and especially the customers, all comparable. Flipping burgers and switching backup tapes don't feel all that different, they're both soul destroying once you get past any initial novelty.

So it's hardly surprising that many leave the job in a pretty bitter state. What is surprising is how many of them think their situation is novel, and that it's worthy of sharing with the world.

Oh noes!

Oh for shame! A helpdesk job with no upward mobility and he had to leave for greener pastures!

Give me a break. For those of us in IT, there are lots of jobs and lots of career paths -- but if you really want a new job, you have to motivate yourself, learn on your own, and (often times) leave the company to get a better job. If you're intelligent (as another user pointed out, just because you have a knack for computers doesn't make you smart) and are good with customers and juniors, you'll go far.

The key thing support guys (and I fall into this category) usually fail to realize is that they are not the cock-n-balls. They are the jock strap. It is their position to support the important parts of the business. Like the dispair.com poster says, just because you're essential, it doesn't mean you're important.

Me? I've got 8 1/2 years of IT experience. I went from being a lowly support guy (about as low as you can get...a data tech in the Marine Corps), today I'm a router guy who does senior-level enterprise network support for almost a half-million end users in our organization. Daily.

If you want it bad enough, you can get it. Just get rid of the "heh heh stoopid lusers" attitude and get with the program. IT support is little different than A/C repair, vehicle repair, medicine, or a myraid of other support/repair professions. Get the customer to trust you, don't make them feel stupid for not being able to do it themselves, and in the end, get them up and running, and happy that you're there for them, and will be next time.

You never hear EMTs giggling after work about stupid guys not being able to recognize heart attack symptoms. They get on the scene, and help the patient. Help the customer. Support them. That's what "IT support" is all about.

My problem when I was there...

My biggest problem when I worked at Apple (tech support, then educational tech support) was that the only thing that mattered ever was sales. I was a good tech, but I'm not at all a good salesperson. I never once claimed to be a good salesperson... I'm terrible at it, don't like trying to sell things to people, and frankly just dislike salespeople in general. When I was hired on, we were told that there was only a little bit of minor sales involved, such as being able to sell someone an adapter or disc when they asked for it. If that was the case, then no problem, I can do that.

This turned out to be a lie.

All of the tech support agents have sales quotas. They must sell, or they may lose their jobs. The actual sales department got commission on sales. The tech support department just had their job threatened if they didn't sell $X in product per month. If you called in simply asking for help getting your month-old iBook to boot, I was expected to get you to buy something during that call... OR ELSE. For a while my supervisor made me keep a record of every call that I did not sell something on, and I had to have a good explanation as to why I didn't make a sale, or I would be written up.

All bonuses, awards, and recognition was given out for sales numbers, and nothing else. It did not matter if you were a good tech or not, if you were good at customer service or not, it only mattered that you could sell product to people who called in just wanting support on the stuff they already bought.

That's why I'm no longer there. (in the end, it was not my choice to leave) I like the products, I like the company, but I hate the practices of the AppleCare secion of the company so very much.

as another applecare rep.....

I can say that if you think apple customers are hard to deal with you're a spoiled brat. They are some of the nicest, most intelligent people out there.It's all how nice you sound. I get maybe 3 insufferable jerks per WEEK. that's at 30 calls a day.

If you're an asshat, you'll get a lot more asshats because you CAUSED IT!

I personally PREFER people with zero knowledge of computers. they do exactly what I ask them to quickly and efficiently.

It's the people that think they know everything and argue that they know more than you that make life hard.

When someone is obviously low in computer proficiency I tell them "It's really OK. I'm sure there's something you do much better than me, some day I may need YOUR help."

The moment I say that the call goes very smoothly, as they know I'm not going to judge them, I'm just there to help.

Booo hoo - too good for customer service job

Read the article he was a developer and walked into the job with an attitude.

I have worked a ton of these jobs and a lot of things people have said so far I totally and completely agree with:

1. Just because someone does not understand computers does not make them an idiot. I did tech support for lawyers at one point and you cannot tell me that the Harvard grad senior partner was an idiot just because he knew less about computers than Bob the first year help desk guy. Yet, Bob got his silly butt fired for treating the senior partner like a moron and insulting his computing skills.

2. Its customer service. Yeah you might be able to answer half the questions before the customer figures out what to tell you about their problem but come on.

3. Sure, a customer should be prepared with basic info going into a help desk call just like you should have all your insurance info right there when you call the company on a claim and all that. But this is not the way to look at it. When someone takes their car in especially nowadays they do not know cars and can barely in grunts noises and gestures describe their issue. That is the way it is. Its the job. Get over it.

4. You think customer service sucks? Man, you ain't seen shitty jobs till you flipped burgers or done landscaping in the hot summer or worked a conveince store so until you have scrubbed puke out of a toilet at 3am after the drunks drop come in with the munchies acting rowdy then shut the hell up. Boo-frickin-hoo You are above it? Then quit, get a better job and get over it.

5. I agree with the poster who talked about the good service from Apple. I have heard some motherboard freaking out mac in the shop for weeks horror stories. But it has never been my experience. I went in a month after I got my shuffle and the usb went dead and my computer would not recognize the thing at all. Unlike one poster that wrote the Genius Bar guys off as arrogant the guy checked out what I said I told him what I had tried and he plugged the thing into a Mac right there and - nothing- they replaced it right then and there. Quick, easy polite and all.

Dress different!

I seem to recall someone I knew got in a conflict with an Apple manager over whether or not "barefoot" was okay. I might be wrong, though. It's a long time since I heard the story.

Not news, not worthy.

Come on, this isn't news. It's just another self-involved blog post... jesus, why should I care? Waste of space.

Teamwork and Infrastructure Matter

To give you an idea about that, how much would you expect to pay a consultant (one man, not a company) that had even most of the following skills?

I worked in Applecare for 9 years and saw a lot of this attitude. Tech support specialist feel more knowledgeable than we actually are because we forget the enormous support given to us by our teammates and the support infrastructure of the company. It might be true that any particular high level support tech could leave the company and get highly paid for the knowledge they possess but that superior knowledge would grow stale in hurry. They would have an edge for 3-6 months but after that slip down the knowledge slope and end up just like everyone else.

Applecare techs can quickly solve problem that would take expensive consultants because they have an instant reservoir of high quality information at their fingertips. First, they have their teammates who are also specialist in area who can be tapped just by poking one's head over a cube wall. Second, they have the databases, training and testing labs provided by the company that lets them find answers quickly. Thirdly, they can escalate problems up the technical food chain until it hits the people who actually created the product in the first place.

All this support makes the individual feel super-knowledgeable but I saw a lot of people leave for consulting gigs who didn't make it for long because they under-estimated how important their support was.

Tech support isn't for everyone. Its not a high status job by any means no matter how well compensated. However, if you like rapid problem solving, have basic personal skills and can just remember that if everyone knew what you knew you wouldn't have job in the first place, it can be a good career.

try wearing drag

flipflops is a dot-com thing. I know people who do that where I work, shorts, flip-flops and t-shirts. So what. I'm waiting for someone to show up in drag .. LOL.. last person I heard that did that at a company was fired, not sure why though...

Working at apple

I am trying to land a job at apple. but I get the usual, you have to apply through the website... :( does anyone here who works at apple or worked at apple has some tips on getting hired by apple?

On user knowledge

I find it simply amazing that most of you haven't even touched on this. One guy did who stated that just because the user doesn't know computing doesn't mean he's stupid. However, the majority of you do tend to throw crap at the IT people for not being understanding of the users' lack of skills.

I have been working in IT for over 7.5 years now and I can tell you this: It's not the users' lack of computer knowledge/skills that pisses us off. It's their laziness for not even TRYING to figure these things out. The vast majority of our problems are that users do not know how to user their computers. I currently support over 350 computers and 700 users. In this pool of users, there are very few (around 10 - 15) users who actually make a good solid effort to learn how to use their computers. When something goes "wrong" they instantly freak out and call IT to come to their offices to fix the problem. I don't have this documented so I will pull this number out of my ass. I am willing to bet that around 85% - 90% of my time is wasted on showing users how to user their computers.

Now I know some of you are going to bitch about the use of the word 'wasted' there, but it really is appropriate. Would I apply for a job as a chef of a 5 star hotel if I didn't know how to use an oven? If I couldn't make the thing cook food, would I bitch and moan that the oven doesn't work and call the repair guy in to fix it? Hell no! I would be fired. One of the major problems here is that more and more jobs today require people to use computers. When people apply for jobs in my department, they are asked if they know how to use a computer. Specifically, clerical staff are asked about MS Office and they even have it on their resumes that they are proficient with Office. I'm not kidding, the people who put these skills on their resumes ask me simple things like, "how do I save a file?" I literally had to draw a picture of a computer with a blow up box for the power button, just so one of our PhDs would know how to turn the computer on. I wasn't being sarcastic. He TOLD me to do this for him! These types of problems are NOT rare! Most of my users freak out when an error message pops up. When I ask them what it says, they said they didn't read it, they just clicked 'OK' and bad things started to happen. People need to have the common sense and lack of laziness to at least read error messages that pop up. The ones who do try to read it still end up geting freaked out before they finish and call us. Basic understanding of the language on your screen and a basic basic basic knowledge of computers is enough to understand most of the error and other messages that pop up. (Please, don't give me shit about cryptic messages. I am fully aware of them and hate them, but most messages are very easy to understand if you just read them.)

Getting past the issue of user laziness and onto the issue of user knowledge, there is a difference between computer users not knowing how to map an SMB share and people who don't know how to login or save a file. Face it, 30 years ago pen, paper, and type writers may have been the tops in office tools, but today, it's the computer. We should have some reasonable expectations for what you can and cannot do with a computer before you are hired into a job that requires its use. Consider the billions of dollars wasted each year in the mere time it takes IT personnel to teach users how to use the tools of their jobs. Until the k-12 system catches up and the graduating high-school seniors are expected to know how to use a computer as well as a pencil, we need to have some better policies surrounding the minimum level of computer proficiency for a job. If you apply for the job and claim to have that proficiency and it becomes found out later that you don't, instead of giving your IT guy more grief, give the employee who isn't qualified the axe.

I want it to be known that I am all about user education. I have been doing it for over 7 years. But their needs to be a limit. I'm n

Welcome to the Machine

The majority of people in the organization are doing some form of tedious grunt work or another. Either grunt work on the phone, or with email or chat, or making those systems work. Once you've gone through the birthing period in your job where you learn what to do, it's one unimpressive day after another with the exact same duties giving you the exact same problems from the customers and the processes.

This is life in nearly every company. Compare the developers in Apple or MS to the support staff (phone support, sales, janitors). I bet most large companies have more janitors than developers. Look at auto companies. How many design the cars vs build and sell them?

The guy is more of a whiner than insightful.

qz

God loves assholes

"One fellow even went as far as pushing that to the reasonable limit by showing up to work every day for several months in a bathrobe and sandals (and shorts). I don't recall a word ever being said. I think he actually just gave up because no one said anything"

Man that really brought a smile to my face!

Gotta love human nature eh?
Some asshole _always_ has to push the enelope on rules he he :)

Why Outsourcing is GOOD

Ok, so in the end this guy left a dead end support job for a start up that could presumably create something cool and new and really change things.

This is exactly why outsourcing is a good thing. Cisco purged a bunch of people form call centers near where I live, sent all the jobs to India... Everyone was up in arms, the tech community was angry, no one could "find a job" cause suddenly there were 800+ certified, experienced techs in the job market.

Fast forward 2 years... All of the ex-cisco employees have jobs now, and alot of them have started new companies that are doing some pretty cool stuff, they are hiring people, creating more jobs, and being more innovative.

If Cisco hadn't sent all the dead end jobs to India, there would be ~50 less tech companies in the area, and about 2k less jobs. Anyway, I have seen first hand that sending these types of dead end jobs overseas is not a bad thing, even if they are "white collar", "good paying" jobs.