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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. Nothing here adds up at all. Sounds to me like the author was let go for different reasons entirely (and this was just an easy excuse for management), or that something else is missing here.

The number of mentions about Apple providing the service "for free" makes it sound like the author perhaps actually charged their elderly friend, and honestly that would be a huge violation. I don't know exactly what the author's job was (can't find it on the site), but if their job is servicing Macs, it's very normal for their employment contract to forbid making money servicing Macs outside their job -- it's literally having your own employees compete with you.

But if the author didn't charge... then there's got to be a separate "real reason" they were fired.

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But then this isn't the first time we read about an Apple Employee being majorly mistreated / Apple having a questionable work culture on Hacker News.

If I should guess such kind of article pops up around every half a year since I'm following Hacker News (I have an account since 4 years so more than that).

Some even came from people much higher up then this person seems to have been.

My guess is that they have a policy against it, but normally either don't hear about "private support" or don't care about it. But do use it to get ride of anyone who thinks differently in the sense that they don't agree with everything Apple does, like complaining to another employee that it's petty of Apple to sue some small company with a peach logo.

There are ex Apple employees here and on Reddit saying there’s no such policy, so either this manager made up a bogus excuse and risks getting fired themselves, or the author is concealing the real reason.

Surely the author must know this isn’t a policy violation though? Why not report the manager, or sue for wrongful termination? It doesn’t make any sense.

IANAL, but until someone posts the terms of employment for an Apple genius bar somewhere, everything is pure speculation.

You can be pretty much fired for any reason in any company, with or without cause. Apple probably isn't going to say anything. It could be as simple as the manager wanted to hire his best friend's son, and needed an open spot.

Well yes and no. California where I am is at will, which means the company can say hey, sorry do not need you and not give a reason. All good. However if they do give a reason then they are required to be able prove the reason is valid. Having managed a great deal of people I have been in situations where I would document any issues in detail, however at the end the company just did an “At Will” see yah termination as it is safer.

This is my understanding. IANAL or an HR person.

Pretty sure the company is on the hook for unemployment if they're fired without cause.

You're telling me Apple doesn't have a conflict of interest policy?

That sounds strange.

So the Geniuses at the Genius bar can basically openly tell people that they can go to the other shop they work at across the door and they will do the repair at half the price? And Apple will have no policy against that?

The ex Apple employees, including one posting here, say the conflict of interest policy does not prevent helping friends or family with tech problems for free.

It seems plausible this guy did so for money. Note that the post says the work was done in spare time but doesn’t say it was done for free. That would be a conflict of interest because it’s engaging in commercial activities also engaged with by Apple.

It's also possible that he took home some internal tools to use as well, which I can imagine would land him in hot water.

They don't need an excuse to fire anyone, the majority of the US is at-will employment, which means your employer can fire you without cause.

EDIT: What's with the downvotes? it's true.

You are severely mistaken. At will doesn't mean you can fire people for any reason without liability. Wrongful termination is a thing that companies are terrified of. There are so many protected classes in CA, and firing someone in a protected class can have dire consequences. I've witnessed it first hand.

It's not a mistake, and it isn't severe. You're talking about exceptions to the law, not the law itself. The law is exercised thousands of times a day and wrongful termination lawsuits account for single-digit percentages.

As the plaintiff in such a case you need to be able to provide evidence that it's "reasonable to believe" that you were fired because of whatever protected class you fall into.

It can be difficult to do, especially if you're blindsided and escorted out of the building and cut off from any sort of evidence (tip: if you think you could be fired because of who you are, start keeping receipts before you're fired).

Previous to winning my own discrimination case, I was a juror in a case where an employer almost got away with blatantly discriminatory firing. They thought they were being sly by sacrificing another non-protected employee at the same time... but then bragged about it to an employee they didn't realize would rat them out. If it wasn't for that email there wouldn't have been enough evidence to know for sure.

That aside, if you're not a protected class (the majority of people aren't)... good luck. You can be fired without cause at any given moment.

> You're talking about exceptions to the law, not the law itself.

Yeah, exceptions are the problem, there are many.

> That aside, if you're not a protected class (the majority of people aren't)

80% of the people I work with are in a protected class.

> Previous to winning my own discrimination case

All the suits filed against my company in the last 35 years (2) were frivolous and we settled both of them. Good for you for winning a non-frivolous one, but in my experience (talking with other COO's) frivolous cases are very common.

It's fear of these frivolous cases that drive LOTS of behavior.

EDIT: there were threats of other suits (3-5). All frivolous.

It’s true, but it misses the point that they can be sued for age discrimination, violating their own governance policies, not properly training the worker, intentional infliction of abnormal stress, etc. BTW, I couldn’t downvote you if I wanted. Lots of Apple people involved in this site.

> I don't know exactly what the author's job was (can't find it on the site), but if their job is servicing Macs, it's very normal for their employment contract to forbid making money servicing Macs outside their job -- it's literally having your own employees compete with you.

It still depends. Even if it's in the employment contract, the extent to which anti-moonlighting, non-compete, and other kinds of anti-competitive clauses that attempt to control the employee when they're not at work are enforceable varies drastically from case to case and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Conflicts of interest and potential IP theft can affect the decision, but even doing the exact same job just outside of your normal working hours is not necessarily grounds for a breach of contract.

In places like apple doing password resets / account unlocks to allow data transfer, even if you do that for free on the clock, is very commonly prohibited off the clock and/or for "friends".

I actually had a case recently where someone lost reset to a google account. They ended up (THANKFULLY) somehow getting a password reset through an enterprise account admin who had the pull of a huge contract to help out. But I'm sure it was cleared and on the clock for the employee side to do this because I immediately thought - awesome! and also thought - damn, whoever can do these transfers has a TON of power if they ever went rouge.

> In places like apple doing password resets / account unlocks to allow data transfer, even if you do that for free on the clock, is very commonly prohibited off the clock and/or for "friends".

Yep, that sounds like it could be more clear cut -- you're using employer resources/tools without permission.

Hell, he could have been fired for providing a competing service (even if it was for free).

I read the constant mentions of "for free" to point out that Apple was not losing any money from his helping out the neighbor. If Apple did charge for the data transfer service and he did it for free, then I could see Apple getting upset. Then again, maybe Apple offers data transfer for free as a loss leader to get the person in so they can charge them for some other service or product.

I get the same feel from something missing in the testimony, but, what would be the motive of the ex-employee to write this ?

Personally I can relate to the author because I've experienced a similar sobering up from the marketing of a different corporation that I worked for. (I dreamed of working there growing up and one day I got a chance to work for them almost by accident.)

It was exhilarating for the first 1-2 years but as I came to know how the company actually works from the inside I was more and more disappointed that their outside image couldn't be further away from the truth.

They might have been a fan of his manger's rival sports team.

Manager is a spiteful asshole and found a reason to fire them.

This also happens.

But I agree the official reason sounds like a corporate scapegoat to not get sued.

That's a bad take on the "for free" aspect. I think he pointed that out to say that his friend opted for his help rather than wait 1-2 weeks on the "free" service because it was inconvenient. I have my doubts about apple letting someone go for something that they do for free and also for doing something that basic in their own private lives. It's not impossible, just improbable

That's one of the simpler theories. Mentioned to a co-worker he made some extra coin over the weekend helping a neighbor. The co-worker, for whatever reason, spilled the beans. Maybe he was on thin ice for other reasons...

Or maybe the manager had a grudge against him... happens a lot.

This is a retail outlet afterall, far away from the culture of the mothership.

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