Pros

Very talented group of people, with good creative abilities. Not a lot of politics or disingenuous behavior in my particular workgroup.

Cons

Sometimes very myopic about what the outside world really looks like and what competitors bring to market. Overly conservative and introspective in planning and strategy.

Advice to Senior Management

More investment in projects with longer return windows; be more proactive in understanding future competition and taking it into consideration as part of operational planning.

Pros

Fun working environment.
Good benefits and discounts.

Cons

Working in retail.
To much stuff I want to buy

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

There are no solid rules about what your job is, so as long as you get your work done right you can kind of make it up as you go along. This gives a lot of flexibility to peruse the aspects of the job that interest you. People at Apple are smart and dedicated; they're there because they enjoy the work. The work is action, not talk, because there's no time to waste.

Cons

The converse of everything I said above is that there's an extreme lack of planning (positive spin: "Our company can turn on a dime!") or policy (positive spin: "Work how you want, when you want."). As great as flexibility can be, sometimes set policies are good so people actually know what to do. It sure doesn't hurt to make solid plans more than a few days in advance when a project has a 6-12 month schedule. Last-minute changes are the norm, and many a hair-pulling night has been spent cleaning up messes created by others' lack of planning.

Advice to Senior Management

An environment where workers are literally afraid to send bad news up the management chain leads to huge problems down the road. Management says they're open to comments and criticism, but when things go wrong, all they want to know is why it wasn't fixed yesterday. This isn't magic, people!

Pros

You will work with some of the most talented, skilled and amazing people in the world, with some fantastic products. Fun, exciting environment. Great products, and for a retail store, best in the world.

Cons

That said, your work / life balance will be absolutely terrible. Managers are demanded all the time, and its on you to make sure a roll out, launch, or initiative succeeds. Often times, a day off is a joke, with plenty of emails and phone calls for follow up or other things of the sort. Apple controls communications, so often times, you're making special trips to work to do things, and due to the secretive nature of the company, you're often given very little lead time to get things in place. Rearranged schedules are the norm. PTO is a pain in the ass to schedule. Tough to see the "next move" once you've reached management, the limited number of stores is also a built-in challenge to that.

Advice to Senior Management

Give your Managers a more detailed career path. Give them something to skill and train for, as well as encourage them. Not much positive feedback, always scrambling to put out a fire or deal with a situation, consider some rewards for the managers too. It's a great place to work when it's working correctly, or it's not a launch time, find the "magic" that the stores had years ago.

Pros

Paid transit subsidiary
Slightly above average pay for retail

Cons

Your availability has to be extremely open
Difficult to move up
No set schedule

Advice to Senior Management

Provide a clearer career path

Pros

Excellent Benefits Package
Decent wage
QPromo, EPP, ESPP, Friends and family discounts
Inside technical information, software and hardware to play with
Great co-workers
Street cred

Cons

Customers (complaints)
NetPromoter
Points system (call in sick, 1 point, more than 6 minutes late, 1 point. Accumulate too many points during a quarter and you're fired)
Butt-kissing gets you promoted faster than doing actual work
"GAPple" management
Non-apple new-hires that don't get any training
Lack of space

Advice to Senior Management

Value your long-term employees. Compensate them fairly, give them the credit they deserve to do their jobs well and provide excellent service. Value your customer, without them we are nothing. Train your employees. Listen to your employee feedback and act upon it. Get rid of the "points" system. Be available and on the floor - not in the office with the door closed. Be an example, motivate your employees instead of always telling them what they are doing wrong or could do better, celebrate what they do RIGHT. Give more positive feedback. Reward great work. Don't turn Apple Retail into Circuit City.

Pros

- Sense of pride and excitement when the company announces the next groundbreaking product.
 - You get to work with very eager, talented people who love their jobs and work very hard.
 - You get to play with technology all day long.
 - For a problem solver, it's a dream come true.
 - The benefits are good, and the pay isn't bad either (though it's not stellar).

Cons

- The company sets goals high, which puts a lot of stress on everyone to perform.
 - Customers are generally stupid, demanding, obnoxious, or a combination of all three. This is probably also true everywhere else in retail though.
 - There are always fewer people working than are needed for the store to run smoothly.
 - Senior managers are apparently under very little oversight (other than performance based), and can pretty much do whatever they want.
 - Managers goals come from the land of make believe.
 - Constant pressure from customers, management, other employees, the company, etc.
 - Most Geniuses burn out after 3 months to a year, and the ones that stay on after that are either exceptionally talented, or are burned out husks that just like the salary and benefits.
 - Wild variations in pay for the same job, apparently arbitrarily decided by management.
 - You will come to have a crushing apathy for all things Apple. You won't want to touch your computer when you get home. When your friends ask you for help with their computers, you will throw up in your mouth a little.

Advice to Senior Management

- Pay attention to who you're hiring in management. Here's a hint: if you want to create a different kind of retail store, DON'T HIRE MANAGERS FROM THE GAP.
 - Offer employees a chance at something beyond retail. There's a lot of talent in the company being squandered on selling iPods all day long.
 - Give us the room to honor the commitments we've made to existing customers instead of insisting that we help the person right in front of our face at the time. If you want to run a repair business, WE NEED SOME TIME TO DO REPAIRS.
 - And finally, you need to double the number of staff at most stores. Customers can't find anyone to help them, get angry and confused, and have a terrible experience.

Pros

The people that work at Apple are wonderful and it is good fun. If money or long time career aspirations aren't important then it might be a good place to work. Probably would be a good place for a college student living at home looking for some extra bucks, or retiree's that can't bring home too much for fear of upsetting the balance with Social Security.

Cons

I worked there for nearly a year and half and it is a good place to work, although if you need to raise a family it won't pay near enough. The only way to get out of the measly salary is through management and they don't have a clear path to follow if that is the direction you wish to pursue. If you move from one area to another they will not match your salary and will make you go through the interview process again. Also, they have gone from an easy going educational sort of salesperson to the entire concentration being on making your numbers (solutions). If you don't make your numbers (selling the ad on's) then you won't be promoted to full time and you will be subject to pressure from the bosses to sell, sell, sell those solutions! Even when you make it to full-time the pressure is intense to sell those ad on's. It's a major competition with no real rewards for making your numbers - other than the ASM's getting bonus' on your behalf. Of course, they won't share that with the employee's. Also, you need to enjoy working weekends and nights.

Advice to Senior Management

You will continue to lose good people unless you concentrate on the internal workings of the Company. People want and need good communication and career advancing goals and paths. If Steve Jobs had any idea how some of the local managers operated, they probably wouldn't be there for long. It used to be a great place to work, but not any longer. It is getting easier and easier to get a job at Apple. Also, at the Apple where I worked you have to love to hear swearing - it's commonplace from the Manager down.

Pros

awesome products that are easy to sell and a company you can be proud to associate with

Cons

constant changes in policies and procedures drove me nuts

Advice to Senior Management

celebrate the bottom of the food chain--the mac specialists are the "red blood cells" of the entire organism...with them...you are dead

Pros

There is no "busy-work" at Apple. Everything is done for very good reasons -- there is no wasted work. You're proud of what you do, and people you meet outside of Apple really care about what you do.

Cons

Potentially long hours. Long lines at the cafeteria? But other than that, there's no apparent downside of working at Apple.

Advice to Senior Management

The senior management team at Apple is the strongest in the industry. They have experience, vision, unyielding innovation, and the power to execute.