The employee, Australian Ben Farrell, was employed by Apple in Singapore. He wrote a blog celebrating his freedom from a culture he describes in truly graphic, disturbing, and sometimes horrifying terms.
Important – For the purpose of commentary, I’m treating Mr Farrell’s statements in his blog like information related to a lawsuit, because he may also have legitimate grounds for legal action regarding some matters. I’m going to refer to his statements regarding Apple as “allegations”, because there are significant legal components in some matters, and “trial by Internet” is quite inappropriate given the seriousness of some of his statements.
I’m not going to quote him or rehash his statements. It’s important to read his statement in its entirety to grasp exactly what he’s saying, so I’ll stick to a summary.
To put his statements regarding alleged incidents in perspective – Mr Farrell is a former New South Wales policeman. Police culture can be very brutal indeed, so tough it’s almost incomprehensibly alien to civilians. For an ex-policeman to describe a corporate culture and make the allegations as he has is therefore no trivial thing.
To be fair, there’s no whining in his commentary. Farrell expresses his views regarding Apple from a business professional base, describing issues and incidents objectively and clearly in context with his employment. The high level of adrenalin in his blog, celebrating his release and dissecting issues is quite clear. The anger is also very clear, but he keeps both in check in his narrative.
Ironically, what he describes in his blog is a management culture many will find very familiar, but notably worse in some respects. He refers to culture of meetings about having meetings, sycophantic “conspicuous reverence” for management even on a social level, and endless micromanagement. It’s sitcom stuff in one way, but it’s also pretty appalling.
(He also got some flak for being Australian, a recent phenomenon in other American companies which generates nothing but amused contempt from Aussies. We don’t tolerate patronizing comments from bitchy-snitchy little office boys and girls living in their funeral parlor cultures. Farrell was apparently far more polite about this issue than most. He doesn’t mention making any of the traditional Australian immediate two word responses or throwing those responsible out of the nearest window. Police are also trained to manage behaviour most people would consider intolerable.)
Unintentional black comedy aside, some of Farrell’s allegations are extremely serious and very unfunny, and they’re the reasons I have to call his comments allegations. He describes a case in which his pregnant wife suffered an injury falling down stairs. Apple’s response was to describe his actions to take care of his wife as a performance issue, not a responsibility. He was also ordered to complete urgent tasks while in hospital.
It’s unclear what action would have been acceptable in context with the culture he describes. It’s also unclear why a medical emergency would be considered relevant to performance, or why the company would take that position in relation to a lot of different statutory requirements. In Australia and many other countries, these issues alone would be grounds for a lawsuit.
He records a range of incidents, insults, and denigrating remarks which would be more suitable for a bad frat movie than the workplace. Most people would find this saga of a series of small-minded management responses all too familiar. Others would note that from his account a lot of these incidents seemed to occur specifically when he was under stress, another very familiar pattern of abuse.
I’ve covered the behaviour of American employers in my work for years. There is a widespread culture of similar behaviours:
Women with kids whose work shifts are changed to disrupt their lives.
People who are suddenly confronted with a new range of unknown, unpredictable expectations from management.
Constant criticism, with or without a reason.
People being “performance managed” to extremes. I had a similar experience. I had to leave the employer before I put a chair through my eternally absent manager’s empty head.
Mind games of all kinds on a routine basis.
Farrell’s allegations are a virtual recital of the template for these behaviours. I have seen exactly the same patterns in other companies, thousands of times. It says nothing good for the quality of management training and corporate culture that these types of abuse are so common.
Interestingly, 30% of Americans sue their employers at some time during their careers. 70% of them win their cases. It’s indicative of the true levels of competence of these American managers that they breach laws on a more or less routine basis.
Apple hasn’t responded to Farrell’s allegations. Perhaps they’re busy; perhaps they don’t think a response is required. The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to an Apple employee who was conspicuously gushing about how great it was to work there.
There are payoffs to this nasty tale – In his next blog, Farrell reports that he’s received a lot of supporting responses from his readers. He also reports a lot of responses which say in effect that this sort of management behaviour is quite normal, and should be expected. Other responses called him a pussy, and said that’s what jobs are like. (Online harassment from ridiculous little chimps with bogus names isn’t unknown, either, in fact it’s very common.)
Now an opinion, and it’s based on business practices, not emotive issues – If any of Farrell’s allegations are true, it sounds to me that those Apple executives are on holiday. A spreadsheet could do their jobs, and do it better and cheaper. If I was a senior Apple manager, they’d be fired for wasting company time and money after a performance management-based dose of their own medicine. They could also be fired for incurring possible major legal liabilities.
The other question here is why senior corporate culture tolerates such behaviours on any level at all. Nobody gets paid to do what these guys are alleged to have done. Do such people consider themselves invulnerable? If so, why? Doesn’t that reflect on senior management, at a rather expensive level?
So – Does Apple care about things like this? Is the company immune to public opinion? We’ll see. Allegations can be tested in courts, and they tend to promote a lot more allegations in the media. When one person comes forward, thousands may follow. This is a PR hell which Apple may have made for itself.
