Apple is undoubtedly one of the most innovative companies on the tech hardware market today, but what people don’t realize is what employees of Apple sacrifice in order to obtain this innovation for the company. While many departments within Apple have a good work life balance and receive compliments from management, the supply chain and purchasing department of Apple is the complete opposite. Supply chain is one of Apple’s largest competitive advantages, and you will feel the pain and burden of that every moment of every day.
The Global Supply Manager role is incredibly demanding. My day would typically start at 9:00 AM, and end around 11:00 PM, and there were multiple times that I would have calls at 2:30 AM. My management knew my hours and my stress, and instead of helping lighten the workload, they told me to, “stay optimistic”, and then several weeks later they doubled my scope of responsibilities. You will have colleagues texting you and calling you at 11:00 PM on weekdays and weekends. The only way to escape this invasive behavior is to place your phone on airplane mode, although you will get in trouble for this when you fail to answer a single text or phone call.
There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done, even if you are a Type A person who is extremely organized and productive. I should clarify that the hours are not the worst part of the job, instead, it is your colleagues who are just as nervous, tired, stressed, and angry at everything as you are. Apple encourages a very hostile environment, both internally and externally, where Global Supply Managers are encouraged to have extremely aggressive discussions with suppliers and individuals from other departments. There is no problem at Apple that cannot be solved by yelling and using condescending language. I have seen Apple employees yell at people earning a tenth of what they earn half way across the globe for problems that individual had no way of controlling. I’ve been in procurement for some time, and I have never seen people treated in such an undignified way as Apple supply chain professionals treat their suppliers and colleagues.
There is no balance in work life. If you have children or a spouse, then those relationships must be de-prioritized in place of Apple. At the end of the day, Apple will chew you up and spit you out, because no matter how loudly you voice that the expectations are not sustainable, they know that there are 30 more applicants fresh out of college who will take your place and be willing to do so for less pay. These fresh faces will then last one or two years, only to then be replaced. It is an endless cycle, and this is nothing new for Apple. Perspective employee beware. When applying for Apple, I remember reading negative reviews such as this one, and quickly disregarding them because I labeled those reviews as “overly-dramatic”, but after two weeks at Apple, I realized how true the other cautionary reviews on this website were.
