Apparently Steve Jobs doesn’t like greedy people who try to take advantage of him, and I don’t blame him one bit. ArsTechina is reporting (although it hasn’t been confirmed) that two separate independent sources have informed them that Apple has fired over 800 employees who decided to take Jobs up on his offer to refund $100 to early adopters who purchased iPhones before the price drop. Yep, those 800 employees are the same lucky ducks who got a phone for free. Do the math and you’ll realize that those 800 employees cost Apple an extra $80,000! No wonder Steve Jobs decided to go on a major firing spree.
It’s hard to believe that 800 people were that greedy, but I’m sure it was viral. Once one person attempted to get the refund and realized Apple didn’t stop them, you can bet they went off to tell their other co-workers to give it a try. You’d also think that these employees would feel some type of loyalty to Apple that would keep them from stealing, especially after getting a rather expensive phone from them. They manipulated the situation, and now they’re going to have to suffer the consequences.
If this turns out to be true, it just goes to show that stealing is stealing. Sure, it will cost Apple quite a bit of money to hire and train 800 new employees, especially right before the holiday season, but it had to be done. Apple could have just given them a warning and moved on, but most companies have a zero tolerance policy and whether it’s a dollar, or $100 dollars, it’s stealing. Now the one question that I have regarding this whole situation is why didn’t Apple have a better system in place to help them determine if the person seeking the refund worked for Apple and had generously received an iPhone for free?
Want a job at an Apple store? Now’s probably the best time to pursue it!
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Kudos to Steve Jobs for doing this! I hope it was worth the $100 for all these people. Maybe they can use the $100 at Kinkos for photocopying resumes.
How can you work for a big technology company like Apple and not even be slightly suspicious that Big Brother might be watching you?
On the other hand, perhaps Apple was looking for a way to get rid of a bunch of people (why they would need to, I have no idea) and this was a way for them to do it and save gobs of money on severance… (okay, so maybe I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist LOL).
I’m not so sure about that, but they definitely don’t want people working for them who have capitalized on the generosity of the company.
That’s a good way to look at it — they were weeding out their staff (although I’m sure they would prefer not to have to do this) and getting rid of the “bad apples” before the holiday season.