We get occasional death threats,' says an Apple in-store ex-employee

In an interview to a well-known publication, an in-store employee with Apple revealed some bizarre information about their work life. The information came in as a shock when he informed the publication about how they receive occasional death threats from customers.

Apple has been well-known for their secrecy when it comes to designing Apple products. Rumours and information about their work behind the curtains come in through various sources who leak out these bits. However, it was a little shocking to know that the secrecy extends all the way down to their Apple Store retail staff too. Business Insider published an interview with a veteran Apple retail store worker in the UK about how it is really like to work at Apple.

Every salesperson or staff member at the Apple Store is made to sign a contract or a confidentiality agreement when they start working there. This agreement bans them from speaking to anyone publically, posting anything on Facebook or even taking a photo or selfie with the Apple T-shirt been worn. What is even serious is that the Apple Store workers in the UK are restricted by the internal policies to prevent part-time workers to become full-time employees. They are also prevented from being promoted into managerial positions.

The interview was done with an employee who preferred to remain anonymous since he feared that Apple could sue him with a legal action based on the agreement he signed. He informs the publication that they get a pay of around GBP 8 (approx $11.7 or Rs 780) per hour. Apart from this pay, they don’t receive any bonuses or incentives even if they have managed to draw sales worth hundreds or thousands of pounds of equipment per day. The workers at Apple Stores cannot afford the products they sell and many have reported to even go into debt while being employed at Apple.

What was shocking is that during his tenure at Apple, he revealed that employees at the store frequently keep getting death threats from angry customers whose devices fail to work.

However, there is a good side to working at Apple too, he confirms. Benefits of working at Apple are good enough. Apple employs you because you are well educated and are more creative than an average worker. You get a generous discount on Apple products and also get a 15 per cent discount on AAPL shares. Additionally, you occasionally get direct access to the Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apart from this, more information from the interview comes in as a shocker—they don’t get promoted. This is a big issue, he says, but it was fixed with a ‘lead and learn’ programme, where you train on the shop floor by acting as a manager, without actually being a manager. People who have worked for almost five years, selling more than anyone else are still specialists or experts. They are still two of the lowest ranked positions at Apple. No one on the programme has yet been promoted to manager. However, there are other jobs at the store that are higher paid. These jobs are technical jobs, but many hated these positions as they had to deal with really angry customers. On being treated from customers, he revealed that most of the complaints from customers were direct to his face. On an average, he would be called a bitch for not knowing how something worked. One day, a customer called him a ‘lazy fu***ng bitch’ for not knowing what exactly the issue was and that he should be ‘fired’ and ‘go to hell’. On an average you get one angry customer each day, he mentions. As for death threats, he had encountered a very angry customer who told him that he would wait outside the store till he finished his day and would run him down with his car. The particular customer was having a device which was out of warranty and threatened him if he did not repair it for free. Fortunately, the customer wasn’t waiting for him outside that day. He had received similar death threats a couple of times. As for other colleagues, he isn’t sure how often they encountered it. He also made it clear that he was told by the management not to discuss such incidents with other people in the store.

In his tenure of four years, none of the in-store employees were ever promoted to a leadership role. Increments in pay were also not as great. In his tenure of four years, he started off at GBP 7.20 and ended up with just GBP 8.08 at the end of the fourth year.

Apple declined to comment on any of these topics when Business Insider contacted them.

The interview was with an employee who was employed with Apple between 2011 and 2015. Check out some more interesting experience revealed by the employee about the good and bad whilst working at an Apple Retail Store in UK. Click here for the entire interview.