“What was once a truly enriching place to work has become a place that leeches and drains everything from their employees. Apple retail no longer values its people and when I say people, I am referring to both your customers and your retail employees serving you on the front-lines.”
Chad Ramey, former Apple store Genius, who resigned from the Arrowhead (Ariz.) store has sent an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook, thanking him for the job experience, but warning that the stores have shifted from life-enriching to life-draining for employees.
I linked to this article because the Arrowhead store is the one I (used to) visit quite often, and I actually met Chad a few times and found him to be quite helpful and polite. He also struck me as a fairly level-headed guy – so I believe everything he’s written in the letter to Tim Cook. And I think what he has to say about the situation is the cause of what I think is a major deterioration of the Apple Store experience over the last year or two.
The latest Apple Store in Arizona opened this weekend to large crowds, and cranky, party-pooper mall security. When I arrived a half hour or so before the Apple Store was set to open, there was already a line stretching halfway through the mall. Most patient customers were waiting with coffee in one hand, iPod/iPhone in the other. 
The first thing I noticed was the age group of the Mac-oholics waiting in line. It wasn’t the typical 20-something geek crowd I generally see at Apple Stores. Instead, a host of 40-somethings, and a very large handful of 50+ retirees just wanting to see what the fuss was all about. I spent a few minutes explaining that the long lines was indeed typical for all Apple Stores, and that while many probably were interested in seeing all the goodies in the store, some were simply in line for the free t-shirt. 
This wasn’t my first Apple Store opening, but it was certainly the most crowded – and I’m not referring to customers. The Arrowhead Mall is located near Arrowhead Ranch in Glendale, Arizona – a big money part of town where the “if you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it” crowd calls home. There were (I’m guessing here) around 40-50 Apple Store employees in bright orange and cyan colored shirts buzzing around the store front, with several of them walking up and down the mall checking the length of the line, which 15-minutes after my arrival had doubled. Perhaps whomever was in charge thought they were going to busy selling iPhones. I still think it was the free T-shirts. Just before the store opened, all the store employees filed-in for a last-minute pep-talk. Lots of clapping and yelling could be heard through the glass store-front. 
It was at this point where the party took a moderate down-turn. The mall security (politely) asked me to stop taking photos because it wasn’t permitted inside the mall. Not wanting to cause a big scene, I decided to stop – because they’re well within their rights to ask me to leave. It was then that I noticed another security officer starting acting like a traffic Cop, rather rudely directing the flow of people when the store opened, as though people were too stupid to know that moving forward was the thing to do. At one point it appeared that he was ready to use whatever means necessary to stop a woman and her kid from cutting in line… the problem was, they were trying to get into another store that the flow of traffic from the line was temporarily blocking. Sheesh. Arrowhead Mall security needs to lighten-up! Despite these minor mall mishaps, the Apple Store Arrowhead appears to be off-and-running at full-speed. I took a quick peek in the store and got the heck out (I don’t like being in the middle of large groups of people). The store itself looked about the same as the Biltmore Apple Store, just a bit smaller – so there was really nothing new to see.