"Apple's frontline employees are struggling to survive", 2 December 2021

If you ask Jimmy Bailey what killed his best friend Mark Calivas, his answer is simple: "It was Apple." How else could he explain how the Apple Store wellness champion...would slide into a depression so profound he'd be forced to take medical leave and ultimately die by suicide?...

Calivas started at the Apple Southpoint store in Durham, North Carolina in March 2013...

... the store hired a new manager...According to Bailey and another former colleague, if you were on her good side, you could get a good schedule, a special project, a promotion. But if you weren’t? “You’d be punished in the most strategic ways possible,” the former colleague says...

Over the years working under the manager, Calivas’ confidence started to wane. He felt trapped — intimidated and bullied by her behavior...In 2021, he took medical leave to cope with his depression.

Bailey and two former colleagues say there have been multiple HR complaints filed against the manager...But nothing ever seemed to change...

In response...Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy said: “We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”...

The Verge spoke with 16 current and former employees on Apple’s retail, support, and sales teams who say their complaints about working conditions and pay have largely been ignored. Some say they are governed more by algorithms and systems than actual managers, making it difficult to get holistic help. All of them note that...they see a profound breakdown in how the company’s corporate values translate to the frontlines...

... Apple’s retail employees make on average between $19 and $25 an hour in the United States...Some say that after staying at the company for six years, they’re making less than $21 an hour.

In the store, Apple uses...a “net promoter score” to see how stores are performing. After a customer leaves, they’ll sometimes receive a survey asking them to evaluate the employee who helped them as well as the overall store experience.

Low scores can often be about factors outside the employees’ control — things like low inventory or wait time. But they still reflect poorly on staff...

...in the early days of the pandemic...Apple announced it was temporarily closing all its stores, sending retail employees home...

...Employees spent eight hours a day fielding inquiries from angry customers. They were evaluated based on call time and customer satisfaction....people with high scores knew they’d eventually get better schedules, promotions, and opportunities. People with low scores could be placed on action plans to try to improve...

The mental health strain that retail employees felt working from home during the pandemic gave them a glimpse into the lives of...AppleCare. These employees are part of the company’s tech support team that answers customer questions in online chats and over the phone.

One employee...said that...sitting at a computer for eight to 10 hours a day started to take a mental toll. In 2021, he decided to take medical leave to cope with the stress of responding to customers in under two minutes...

As his medical bills started piling up, the employee says he and his partner ran out of money...

When his paycheck arrived in May 2021, he found it was just $23, due to health insurance deductions...When he contacted Apple’s corporate payroll team, he said the response was, “We’ll look into it.”...

While Apple’s corporate offices take a proactive, deliberate approach to product development, Apple’s customer support function operates in a reactive mania, using a vast array of processes and metrics to keep employees on task. If workers go to the bathroom or are away from their computers for more than five minutes, they’ll sometimes get a note from their manager asking why they aren’t working. They’re monitored based on their customer satisfaction score, as well as after call work time, which dictates how much time after a call or chat they spend writing up notes, and average handle time (AHT), which indicates how long it takes them to solve a customer issue. A good AHT is around 15 minutes for phone calls and about two minutes for chats...

On chats, the ability to resolve issues can be even more difficult, as employees are expected to speak to three people simultaneously during busy parts of the year...

Bailey says Calivas had lost hope that he’d be able to transfer to a different store. After all the investigations into the manager had gone nowhere, he felt...that corporate just didn’t care....however, he was now too depressed to interview for another job and leave Apple altogether...

In a statement emailed to The Verge, an Apple spokesperson said: “We were devastated by the death of our colleague and our thoughts are with his loved ones in their time of grief.”