The pay sucks (relatively), the stores are busy and crowded, and there's little upward mobility, so it's pretty much a dead-end job. The average Apple store retail workers earns a $11.91 per hour compared to the average Tiffany sales person who earns $15.60 an hour.
But 30,000 of the 40,000 Apple (AAPL) employees in the United States work in the stores, so this has now become the defining experience of working at the company.
And Apple is perceived as cool--much cooler than, say, McDonald's or Walmart or Starbucks--so the company is continually deluged with resumes. For every Apple Store employee who quits, disillusioned, after a couple of years, there are many more eager to take his or her place.
Apple picks a small percentage of lucky candidates from the stack, which are submitted online, of course, through Apple's web site. The company screens for "affability" and "self-directedness," not tech savvy: The latter can be learned; the former is innate. Then Apple invites everyone to a "seminar" in a conference room at a hotel. If you're a few minutes late, you're eliminated.
The people who are offered jobs are often so happy that they burst into tears.
Training commences with what is known as a "warm welcome." As new employees enter the room, Apple managers and trainers give them a standing ovation. The clapping often bewilders the trainees, at least at first, but when the applause goes on for several lengthy minutes they eventually join in.
This brainwashing, by the way, is extraordinarily successful, in many ways.
First, it allows Apple to pay its employees much less than they would make selling similar gear at Verizon stores or AT&T stores. (The average Apple Store employee makes about $30,000 a year. The average Verizon store employee gets nearly twice that.)
Second, it's great for customers--and, therefore, for Apple's reputation. More than 1 billion people have visited an Apple store--more than 80 million per quarter. Apple "specialists" (Apple's brilliant term for its retail salespeople) are often the only human from the company a customer will ever interact with. The fact that these folks have been trained in etiquette and feel a sense of mission is a huge asset to the company. There's nothing that will destroy a company's reputation and image faster than a cadre of salespeople who look like they'd rather be anywhere but in the store.
Cory Moll, an Apple specialist in the San Francisco store is one of those who received a raise last week. His hourly pay jumped $2.82 per hour to $17.31.
"It is nice to know that Apple is finally recognizing the value that we provide to the company," says Moll in the accompanying interview. "It also allows us to live a little more comfortably in the places where we work."
Critics often say employees who want to unionize should find another place of employment if they are unhappy with their working conditions. But Moll likes working for Apple and wants to change and challenge that type of thinking.
"I didn't want to run and try to find a job somewhere else, especially in this [job] market. I am quite happy where I am," says Moll. "I love working at Apple and so do my co-workers, but we can stand up to demand some changes and demand some improvements and definitely Apple seems to be responding at least to satisfy us, at least in the short-term."
Like other retailers, Apple can afford to pay its store employees more (Apple is now one of the most profitable companies in the world), so the company will barely miss the money.
The next problem Apple--and the rest of the country--needs to solve is how to make these jobs become (or, at least, lead to) more of an actual occupation.