I really wanted to work at Apple, but not so much now.

[seonajmulislam00]

Designer Jordan Price had a dream: to work at Apple. After a long time trying to get a job, he got a job in Cupertino, but his dreams didn't come true as expected.

A boss who insulted him and his coworkers, too many meetings, inflexible hours, poor transportation and worst of all, he had no time to see his daughter like he used to.

Read Price's account below, translated into Portuguese:

I really wanted to work at Apple, but now I don't want to.

About a month ago, after years of designing in various industries, building websites for one-off clients, working on failed and arguably successful startups, and dabbling in random side projects, I was invited to interview at Apple. I couldn’t believe it. I had just rebuilt my portfolio, and now it was good enough to be considered as a candidate at Apple. In my opinion, Apple is, without a doubt, the best company a designer can work for.

They set a date for the interview, and I started preparing vietnam telegram data myself for the many difficult questions and problems I would have to solve in front of the design team. I also assumed that a large company like Apple would have several rounds of interviews before making a final decision. I was surprised when I had to do a basic interview with only three people, lasting less than an hour. I drove back to San Francisco from Cupertino, and replayed the interview in my head. It seemed like I had done well, but I didn’t want to rush it. I didn’t want to be disappointed if they rejected me.

It turned out that I did well. I got a phone call the same day and was told I was in. They offered me a contract as a mobile designer. Wow! I was so excited that I screamed when I hung up the phone. My parents and family were so excited when I told them. I posted the news on Facebook, and I had never gotten so many likes and congratulations before. I got more likes when I announced that I had gotten a job at Apple than I did when my daughter was born. People I had befriended years ago who had never spoken to me messaged me. I changed my Twitter handle, and suddenly people who wouldn’t have followed me a week before started following me. People were so excited for me that I decided to celebrate by having drinks one night, and the results were incredible. It felt so good to have people celebrate this achievement with me.

I couldn’t sleep the night before my first day at Apple. I was nervous and excited. It was as if getting an offer from Apple had recognized my talent as a designer. I thought about the long and unorthodox journey that led me to Apple. I wondered, “What does this mean for my career? What will I work on? Where will this take me? Will I ever finish the iPhone app I’m working on?” I had so many questions.

So I started. I was immediately nervous about the strict hours and long commute, but eventually I was going to be one of those notorious tech people who commute to and from San Francisco on a private bus with Wi-Fi. I rarely (almost never) saw my daughter during the week because the hours were so inflexible. I also took a significant pay cut, but I figured I was making a long-term investment by working at such a prestigious company. The entry level was super messy, and they had so many passwords, accounts, and logins that it took me almost a month to get on the server. There were meetings every hour that hurt everyone’s productivity, but it seemed like a necessary evil for such a large company with such high-quality products. It was all a bit annoying, but nothing that would be a big deal in the long run, I figured.

Then my immediate boss (known at Apple as a producer), who had a habit of making personal insults disguised as jokes to anyone under him, started making direct and indirect insults to me. He started reminding me how my contract wouldn’t be renewed if I did or didn’t do certain things. He would stand behind my back (literally) and pressure me to finish some mundane design task that he felt needed urgent attention. He was being polite with his rude comments, but it didn’t make me feel any better when he directed them at my team members. I felt more like a teenager working a crappy job than a professional at one of the biggest companies in the world.

I tried to think on the bright side. I was working at Apple with world-class designers and products. My coworkers had a super-fine eye for design, better than anyone I had ever met before. I loved the attention to detail Apple puts into its design process. Every pixel, screen, feature, and interaction was considered and then reconsidered. The food at the café was great, and I enjoyed my new iPad Air. But my boss’s jokes, insults, and negativity were starting to distract me from my work. My coworkers who stood their ground and set boundaries felt like they were blacklisted and kept out of the circle of people who were sucking up to the producer. I started to feel like one of those people who desperately looked forward to Friday, and I hated Sunday nights. Few of my friends and family wanted to hear that working at Apple wasn’t so great. They loved to say, “Do it for your resume,” or “You have to be the greatest,” or “You’re just starting out. You can’t leave yet.”

This morning I woke up a little later than usual, and missed the only Apple bus that stopped at my house. I ended up driving to work in slow traffic. I was grateful that I didn’t have to drive every day. But I was still thinking that I would rather be taking my daughter to preschool like I did before I started at Apple. I got to work and immediately went to another meeting. I did fine, and then I went back to my desk. Without even saying hello, my boss came out with another weird insult disguised as a joke. I tried to ignore it and go back to work, but I realized I couldn’t. I was overthinking how I should handle the situation. Would I make it to the end of my contract? Could I be moved to another team? How would I get a new job if I was always stuck in Cupertino? Maybe I should punch my boss in the nose? Don’t do it, Jordan.

So at lunch I emptied my iPad, put the files I was working on on the server, left my belongings at my desk, got in my car and drove home. I left a message for my boss telling him that he was the worst boss I had ever had in my entire career, and that I could no longer work for him no matter how good Apple looked on my resume. The third-party company that hired me was furious that I had damaged their relationship with Apple, and of course they felt that I had acted unprofessionally. I am not proud that I walked away, and I feel terrible that I ruined the long-standing relationship I had with the recruiter who helped me with the interview. This is all hard to swallow because I was so excited to work for Apple. I’m not sure if this will haunt me or not, but all I know is that I really wanted to work for Apple, and now I don’t.