好英语网苹果店员不赚钱？
Last year, during his best three-month stretch, Jordan Golson sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the Apple Store in Salem, N.H. It was a performance that might have called for a bottle of Champagne — if that were a luxury Mr. Golson could have afforded.
去年，美国新罕布什尔州塞勒姆苹果零售店(Apple Store)的员工乔丹·戈尔森(Jordan Golson)在三个月里售出约75万美元的电脑和其它电子产品，这是他销售业绩最好的三个月，值得开香槟庆祝——如果高尔森有钱这样奢侈的话。
“I was earning $11.25 an hour,” he said. “Part of me was thinking, ‘This is great. I’m an Apple fan, the store is doing really well.’ But when you look at the amount of money the company is making and then you look at your paycheck, it’s kind of tough.”
“我每小时挣11.25美元，”他说，“有时候我想，‘这也不错。我是苹果的粉丝，这家店的业绩也实在不错。’但是，当你看看公司的盈利，再看看自己的工资单，心里还是难以平衡。”
America’s love affair with the smartphone has helped create tens of thousands of jobs at places like Best Buy and Verizon Wireless and will this year pump billions into the economy.
美国人对智能手机的热爱，在百思买(Best Buy)和威瑞森无线(Verizon Wireless)这样的企业创造了数以万计的工作岗位，今年将为美国经济创造数十亿美元的产值。
Within this world, the Apple Store is the undisputed king, a retail phenomenon renowned for impeccable design, deft service and spectacular revenues. Last year, the company’s 327 global stores took in more money per square foot than any other United States retailer — wireless or otherwise — and almost double that of Tiffany, which was No. 2 on the list, according to the research firm RetailSails.
在这个领域，苹果零售店是无可置疑的王者，它以无懈可击的设计、娴熟的服务和强劲的营收著称。研究公司RetailSails的数据显示，去年，苹果在全球327家零售店的单位面积销售额超过其他任何美国零售商（无论是移动通信还是其他行业），而且几乎是位列第二的蒂芙尼公司(Tiffany)的两倍。
Worldwide, its stores sold $16 billion in merchandise.
全球而言，苹果零售店去年总计销售了160亿美元的商品。
But most of Apple’s employees enjoyed little of that wealth. While consumers tend to think of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., as the company’s heart and soul, a majority of its workers in the United States are not engineers or executives with hefty salaries and bonuses but rather hourly wage earners selling iPhones and MacBooks.
但是，苹果的大多数员工享受不到这些财富。尽管消费者往往把苹果在加利福尼亚州库比蒂诺的总部视为该公司的心脏和灵魂，但苹果在美国的多数员工并不是拿高薪及奖金的工程师或高管，而是销售iPhone智能手机和MacBook笔记本电脑、挣小时工资的人。
About 30,000 of the 43,000 Apple employees in this country work in Apple Stores, as members of the service economy, and many of them earn about $25,000 a year. They work inside the world’s fastest growing industry, for the most valuable company, run by one of the country’s most richly compensated chief executives, Tim Cook. Last year, he received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period, that at today’s share price would be worth more than $570 million.
苹果在美国的4.3万名员工中，大约有3万人在苹果零售店工作，他们是服务经济的成员，许多人的年收入约为2.5万美元。他们在全球增长最快的行业，为全球市值最高的公司工作，执掌公司的是美国薪酬最高的首席执行官之一蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)。去年他得到一笔股票奖励，这些股票将在10年期间陆续授予，按当前股价计算，其总价值超过5.7亿美元。
And though Apple is unparalleled as a retailer, when it comes to its lowliest workers, the company is a reflection of the technology industry as a whole.
尽管苹果作为一家零售商无可比拟，但就最底层员工的待遇而言，苹果的情况反映了整个技术行业的现状。
The Internet and advances in computing have created untold millionaires, but most of the jobs created by technology giants are service sector positions — sales employees and customer service representatives, repairmen and delivery drivers — that offer little of Silicon Valley’s riches or glamour.
互联网和电脑科技的发展让无数人成为百万富翁，但科技巨擘创造的就业多数是服务业岗位，如销售员、客服代表、维修工和送货司机，很难分享到硅谷的财富或荣耀。
Much of the debate about American unemployment has focused on why companies have moved factories overseas, but only 8 percent of the American work force is in manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job growth has for decades been led by service-related work, and any recovery with real legs, labor experts say, will be powered and sustained by this segment of the economy.
在有关美国失业状况的辩论中，有很大一部分聚焦于企业为什么将工厂搬到海外，但根据美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的数据，美国劳动力大军中仅有8%的人在制造业工作。数十年来，就业增长一直是靠服务相关工作拉动的，劳工专家们表示，任何有后劲的经济复苏，都需要服务业的推动和支撑。
And as the service sector has grown, the definition of a career has been reframed for millions of American workers.
随着服务业的发展，对数以百万计的美国工人来说，“职业”的定义也被重新框定。
“In the service sector, companies provide a little bit of training and hope their employees leave after a few years,” says Arne L. Kalleberg, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina. “Especially now, given the number of college kids willing to work for low wages.”
“在服务业，企业提供少量培训，并希望雇员在工作几年后离开。”北卡罗来纳大学(University of North Carolina)社会学教授阿恩·卡勒贝里(Arne L. Kalleberg)说，“尤其是现在，有这么多大学生愿意接受低薪工作。”
By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount.
按零售业标准，苹果提供高于平均的工资，远高于7.25美元的最低时薪标准，超过盖普(GAP)，只是略低于瑜伽和运动服装连锁店露露柠檬(Lululemon)，后者销售员工的时薪约有12美元。就零售商而言，苹果还提供很好的福利待遇，包括医疗保险、401(K)养老金计划缴款和购买公司股票的机会，还能以折扣价格购买苹果产品。
But Apple is not selling polo shirts or yoga pants. Divide revenue by total number of employees and you find that last year, each Apple store employee — that includes non-sales staff like technicians and people stocking shelves — brought in $473,000.
但是，苹果销售的不是保罗衫或瑜伽裤。如果用苹果零售店的营收除以雇员总数，你就会发现，去年，苹果零售店的每个雇员（包括非销售人员，如技术员和上架人员）实现了47.3万美元的销售。
“These are sales rates for a consulting company,” said Horace Dediu, an analyst who blogged about the calculation on the site Asymco. Electronics and appliance stores typically post $206,000 in revenue per employee, according to the latest figures from the National Retail Federation.
“这简直是咨询公司的销售水平，”分析师霍勒斯·德迪乌(Horace Dediu)在Asymco网站上谈到上述计算时表示。根据美国零售联合会(NRF)的最新数据，在电子设备和家用电器零售店，平均每个员工实现的营收为20.6万美元。
Even Apple, it seems, has recently decided it needs to pay its workers more. Last week, four months after The New York Times first began inquiring about the wages of its store employees, the company started to inform some staff members that they would receive substantial raises. An Apple spokesman confirmed the raises but would not discuss their size, timing or impetus, nor who would earn them.
最近，就连苹果本身也似乎认为需要给员工加薪。上周，也就是《纽约时报》开始调查苹果零售店雇员工资四个月后，苹果开始通知一些员工，他们的薪资将得到较大幅度提升。苹果的一名发言人证实了加薪消息，但不愿讨论涨薪幅度、时间或推动力，或者哪些员工会获得加薪。
But Cory Moll, a salesman in the San Francisco flagship store and a vocal labor activist, said that on Tuesday he was given a raise of $2.82 an hour, to $17.31, an increase of 19.5 percent and a big jump compared with the 49-cent raise he was given last year.
然而，苹果旧金山旗舰店的销售员、活跃的劳工维权活动人士科里·莫尔(Cory Moll)周二表示，他的时薪涨了2.82美元，至17.31美元，增幅为19.5%，而去年，他的时薪才涨了49美分。
“My manager called me into his office and said, ‘Apple wants to show that it cares about its workers, and show that it knows how much value you add to the company, by offering a bigger raise than in previous years,’ ” Mr. Moll recalled.
莫尔回忆说：“经理把我叫到他的办公室，说，‘苹果为了表示对员工的关心，为了展示公司知道你增添的价值，决定以高于往年的幅度给你加薪。’”
Though a significant increase, Mr. Moll’s new salary of about $36,000 puts him on the low side of the wage scale at the other large sellers of Apple products, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, both of which offer commissions to sales staff at their stores.
尽管得到了可观的加薪，但与另外两家苹果产品大型经销商美国电话电报公司(AT&T)和威瑞森无线（这两家公司零售店的销售员工可以拿到销售提成）相比，莫尔大约3.6万美元的年薪仍然较低。
In other areas, Apple has been a leader. Stores in a variety of fields have adopted the company’s retail techniques, like the use of roving credit-card swipers to minimize checkout lines, as well as the petting-zoo layout that encourages customers to test-drive products.
在其他领域，苹果一直是领先者。各类产品的零售店都借鉴了苹果的零售技巧，例如采用流动式信用卡刷卡机来缩短结账队伍，以及宠物乐园式的布局以鼓励顾客试用产品。
But Apple’s success, it turns out, rests on a set of intangibles; foremost among them is a built-in fan base that ensures a steady supply of eager applicants and an employee culture that tries to turn every job into an exalted mission.
但是结果证明，苹果的成功还有赖于一些无形因素；最主要的是它拥有现成的粉丝基础，这确保了有源源不断的求职者急于效劳，还营造了试图把每份工作都升华为崇高使命的员工文化。
This is why Apple can do something unique in the annals of retailing: pay a modest hourly wage, and no commission, to employees who typically have college degrees and who at the highest performing levels can move as much as $3 million in goods a year.
这就是为什么苹果能够在零售业做别人做不到的事：支付不太高的小时工资，而且没有销售提成，而它的雇员一般拥有大学学位，业绩最佳者每年能够销售多达300万美元的产品。
“When you’re working for Apple you feel like you’re working for this greater good,” says a former salesman who asked for anonymity because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. “That’s why they don’t have a revolution on their hands.”
“当你为苹果工作时，你会觉得自己为了顾全大局而牺牲小我，”一名前销售员表示。他因为不希望引起关注而请求匿名。“这就是为什么他们没有面对员工的抗争。”
These true believers skew young, as anyone who has ever set foot in an Apple Store knows. And the relative youth of this work force helps explain why people are likely to judge the company by a different set of standards when it comes to wages, says Paul Osterman, a professor at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management.
正如任何到过苹果零售店的人所知道的，这些真正的信仰者以年轻人为主。麻省理工学院斯隆商学院(Sloan School of Management)教授保罗·奥斯特曼(Paul Osterman)说，员工队伍相对年轻，有助于解释人们在薪资方面可能采用一套不同的标准来评判苹果。
“It’s interesting to ask why we find it offensive that Wal-Mart pays a single mother $9 an hour, but we don’t find it offensive that Apple pays a young man $12 an hour,” Mr. Osterman said. “For each company, the logic is the same — there is a line of people eager to take the job. In effect, we’re saying that our value judgments depend on the circumstances of the employee, not just supply and demand of the labor market.”
“有个很有意思的问题：我们为什么对沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)给一个单亲妈妈9美元的时薪感到愤怒，但不认为苹果给一个年轻人12美元的时薪有什么不妥，”奥斯特曼说。“对这些公司来说，逻辑都是一样的——还有大把人排着队渴望得到这份工作。我们在实质上表述了这样一点，即我们的价值判断要看员工的处境，而不仅仅是劳动力市场的供求情况。”
Twenty-two-year-olds also tend to be more tolerant of the Apple Store’s noise and bustle, yet these days some former employees describe a work environment that was too hectic and stressful, thanks in large part to the runaway popularity of the iPhone and iPad.
22岁左右的年轻人也往往更能容忍苹果零售店的喧哗忙碌。可如今，一些前雇员描述称，店里的工作环境过于忙乱，压力很大，这在很大程度上是因为iPhone和iPad太受欢迎。
Managers often tell new workers that they hope to get six years of service, former employees say. “That was what we heard all the time,” says Shane Garcia, a former Apple Store manager in Chicago. “Six years.” But the average tenure is two and a half years, says a person familiar with the company’s retention numbers, and as foot traffic has increased, turnover rates in many stores have increased, too. Internal surveys at stores have also found surprising dissatisfaction levels, particularly among technicians, or “geniuses” in Apple’s parlance, who work at what is called the Genius Bar. Apple declined requests for interviews for this article. Instead, the company issued a statement:
前雇员称，经理经常告诉新员工，希望他们能够工作六年时间。“我们总是听到这样的话，”曾在芝加哥苹果零售店担任经理的谢恩·加西亚(Shane Garcia)表示，“六年。”但据一位熟悉该公司留住员工数量的人士表示，平均任职时间为两年半。同时随着客流量增加，很多零售店的员工离职率也上升了。一些零售店的内部调查也发现员工的不满情绪高得出人意料，尤其是技术人员，也就是苹果所谓的“天才”，他们在被称作“天才吧”(Genius Bar)的地方工作。苹果拒绝就本文接受采访，但发布了一份声明：
“Thousands of incredibly talented professionals work behind the Genius Bar and deliver the best customer service in the world. The annual retention rate for Geniuses is almost 90%, which is unheard-of in the retail industry, and shows how passionate they are about their customers and their careers at Apple.”
“数千名极具天赋的专业人士在‘天才吧’工作，提供着世界上最优质的客户服务。这些‘天才’的年度保留率高达近90%，这在零售行业是闻所未闻的，展示他们对顾客、对自己在苹果的职业多么满怀激情。”
That 90 percent figure sounds accurate to Mr. Garcia, who quit last July after four years with the company, overwhelmed by the work and unable to mollify employees and customers alike. Plenty of technicians do, in fact, like their jobs, which vary around the country, and which pay in the range of $40,000 a year in the Chicago area. Many technicians, though, wanted to leave but were unable to find equivalent work, according to Mr. Garcia and other former managers, in part because of the weak economy.
加西亚认为，90%这个数字应该是准确的。他在苹果工作了四年后，于去年7月辞职，原因是难以承受工作压力以及无法同时安抚员工和顾客。实际上，很多技术员确实喜欢自己的工作，具体工作在全美各地有所不同，在芝加哥地区，技术员的年薪在4万美元左右。不过，据加西亚和其他前管理人员介绍，很多技术员想离开苹果，只是一时找不到同等的工作，部分原因在于当前经济疲弱。
The problem for Apple Store employees, they said, wasn’t just the pace. It was the lack of upward mobility. There are only a handful of different jobs at Apple Stores and the most prestigious are invariably sought after by dozens of candidates. And a leap to the company headquarters is highly unusual.
他们认为，对苹果零售店的雇员来说，问题不仅仅是工作节奏紧张，还包括升职机遇匮乏。苹果零售店只有寥寥几种不同的工作岗位，最好的岗位难免有几十个候选人竞争。跳到苹果总部似乎不太可能。
Apple prohibits its staff from talking to the media, but several former employees who spoke for this article said they had fond memories of their jobs, and regarded them as ideal for people in their early 20s who aren’t ready for a full-on dive into the white-collar world.
苹果禁止员工接受媒体访问，但是好几名就本文接受采访的前雇员表示，他们对苹果零售店的工作有着美好的回忆，而且认为此类工作对那些20岁出头，还没准备好投入白领世界的年轻人来说是理想的。
And “Apple” can be a strong credential to have on a résumé, these people said. Technicians often move on to higher-paying jobs in information technology, they said, and sales staff have a leg up on the competition if they stay in retailing because “people know how grueling the job is,” as one former manager put it.
这些人说，在苹果工作的经历能给简历增加亮点。他们表示，技术员往往能够跳到工资更高的信息技术岗位，而那些留在零售业的销售员工将具有竞争优势，因为正如一位前管理人员所说，“人们知道这里的工作有多么累人。”
But other former employees have struggled to find work, or have moved into lateral jobs at other companies. And even those who used Apple as a launching pad described a gradual evolution, from team player to skeptic, as they discovered that there was a gap between what the job appeared to be (kind of hip) and what it was (frenetic and in many cases a dead end).
但是，也有一些前雇员在找工作方面不顺利，或只是跳到了其他公司的同级岗位。就连那些将苹果当作跳板的员工，也描述了一种心理上的渐变，即从团队成员变成怀疑者，因为他们发现，这份工作的表象（似乎相当时尚）与实际（狂热，而且在许多情况下是一条死胡同）存在鸿沟。
Kelly Jackson, who was a technician at an Apple Store in Chicago, was thrilled when she was hired two years ago. But she said she was even happier when she quit a year later, having found the work too relentless and the satisfactions too elusive.
芝加哥苹果零售店的技术员凯利·杰克逊(Kelly Jackson)在两年前被雇用时激动不已。但她说，一年后辞职时她更加高兴，因为她发现这份工作过于繁忙，而且很难有满足感。
“When somebody left, you’d be really excited for them,” says Ms. Jackson, who now works at Groupon. “It was sort of like, ‘Congratulations. You’ve done what everyone here wants to do.’ ”
“当有人离开时，你会真心为他们感到激动，”如今为Groupon工作的杰克逊说。“那感觉就好像在说，‘恭喜你，你做了这里每个人都想做的事。’”
Recruiting the Devoted
招聘忠心耿耿之人
Skeptics outnumbered believers when Steven P. Jobs, then Apple’s chief, pitched the Apple Store concept to his board in 2000. Ultimately, approval was given for just four stores.
2000年，当时任苹果首席执行官的史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steven Jobs)向董事会提出苹果零售店的创意时，怀疑者多于信任者。最后，董事会仅批准开四家零售店。
Mr. Jobs hired a Target executive named Ron Johnson to help design and oversee the stores. He in turn hired eight people, one of whom was Denyelle Bruno, then an executive at Macy’s West. When she was first approached, she said, she was told next to nothing about the work.
乔布斯挖来美国塔吉特百货公司(Target)高管罗恩·约翰逊(Ron Johnson)帮忙设计和管理商店。约翰逊进而聘用了8名员工，其中一位是邓耶勒·布鲁诺(Denyelle Bruno)，她当时是梅西百货公司(Macy’s West)高管。她说，当苹果最初与她接洽时，对方对这份工作的具体细节讳莫如深。
That did not daunt Ms. Bruno, now an executive at Peet’s Coffee.
但是，这并没有吓退布鲁诺。她现在是毕兹咖啡(Peet’s Coffee)的一名高管。
“I had grown up using Macs, and if it involved Apple and I could be involved,” she said, “it made me feel important.”
她说：“我从小使用苹果电脑长大，如果这件事与苹果有关，而我能够参与，它就让我感到自己重要。”
Ms. Bruno was one of the first hard-core Apple fans hired for the nascent chain. Many others would follow, and part of her job was to help recruit them. Initially, that involved walking into stores, including those operated by Sprint and AT&T, and scouting out promising employees.
布鲁诺是初生的苹果零售店雇佣的首批铁杆粉丝之一。此后还有很多粉丝投奔过来，而布鲁诺的职责之一就是招聘这些人。最初，这要求她走进其他公司的零售店，包括斯普林特(Sprint)和AT&T经营的店面，物色有潜力的人员。
Such solicitations were unnecessary after the first two stores opened, on May 19, 2001, in McLean, Va., and Glendale, Calif. Soon, so many people wanted to work at the stores that Mr. Johnson would compare applicants-to-openings ratios and boast that it was harder to land a job at an Apple Store than to get into Stanford, his alma mater.
2001年5月19日，位于弗吉尼亚州麦克莱恩和加州格兰岱尔的头两家苹果零售店开业后，这样的上门挖人就没有必要了。不久之后，渴望为苹果零售店工作的人数之多，使约翰逊拿申请人与名额的比率作对比，夸口说，进苹果零售店工作比上他的母校斯坦福大学还难。
Those applicants have for years submitted résumés through the company’s site. The time-intensive part, former managers say, is finding the right people amid the pile, and the candidates of choice are affable and self-directed rather than tech-savvy. (The latter can be taught, is the theory, while the former is innate.) The vetting has not changed much. It often starts with an invitation to a seminar, held in a conference room at a hotel.
这些求职者多年来通过苹果的网站提交简历。前管理人员称，最耗费时间的就是在一堆人当中挑出合适的人选；首选候选人是那些具有亲和力和主动性的人，而不一定是技术内行。（公司的理论是，后者是可以传授的，而前者是天生的。）这些年来遴选过程没有太大变化。求职者往往被邀请出席在酒店会议室举行的研讨会。
The culling begins before the seminar starts.
在研讨会开始之前，筛选就已开始。
“They turn away people who are three minutes late,” says Graham Marley, who attended his seminar in a hotel in Dedham, Mass., in 2009. “My dream my whole life was to work for Apple and suddenly, you can,” he said. “You’ve always been an evangelist for Apple and now you can get paid for it.”
“他们会淘汰迟到超过三分钟的人。” 格雷厄姆·马利(Graham Marley)说。2009年，他参加了在马萨诸塞州戴德姆一家酒店举行的研讨会。“我毕生的梦想就是为苹果工作，突然之间美梦成真了，”他说。“你一直就是苹果的布道者，而现在你这么做还有钱拿。”
One manager said it was common for people offered jobs to burst into tears. But if the newly hired arrive as devotees, Apple’s training course, which can range from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the job and locale, turns them into disciples.
一位经理说，求职成功者眼泪夺眶而出的场面相当常见。但是，如果说新员工是苹果爱好者，那么苹果的培训课程（根据工作岗位和地点持续数日至数周不等）就会把他们变成苹果的信徒。
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.
培训的开头有一个“热烈欢迎仪式”。在新员工走进房间时，苹果管理人员和培训师起身鼓掌。掌声往往让学员困惑，至少最初是这样，但在掌声持续了漫长的数分钟后，他们最终会加入鼓掌的行列。
“My hands would sting from all the clapping,” says Michael Dow, who trained Apple employees for years in Providence, R.I.
在罗得岛州普罗维登斯培训苹果员工数年的迈克尔·道(Michael Dow)说：“我的手都会拍疼。”
There is more role-playing at Core training, as it’s known, this time with pointers on the elaborate etiquette of interacting with customers. One rule: ask for permission before touching anyone’s iPhone.
在所谓的“核心”培训期间还有更多的角色扮演。这一次是介绍与顾客交往的复杂礼仪。其中一条规则是：触碰别人的iPhone之前需要征得同意。
“And we told trainees that the first thing they needed to do was acknowledge the problem, though don’t promise you can fix the problem,” said Shane Garcia, the one-time Chicago manager. “If you can, let them know that you have felt some of the emotions they are feeling. But you have to be careful because you don’t want to lie about that.”
“我们告诉学员，他们要做的第一件事是承认问题，但不要承诺你能解决问题，”曾经是芝加哥店经理的谢恩•加西亚说。“如果你做得到的话，不妨让他们知道你能体会他们的一些感受。但你得小心，因为你不想在这上面撒谎。”
The phrase that trainees hear time and again, which echoes once they arrive at the stores, is “enriching people’s lives.” The idea is to instill in employees the notion that they are doing something far grander than just selling or fixing products. If there is a secret to Apple’s sauce, this is it: the company ennobles employees. It understands that a lot of people will forgo money if they have a sense of higher purpose.
学员们多次听到的一句话是：“丰富人们的生活。”在他们投入店里的工作后，这话仍回响在耳边。其目的是向雇员们灌输这样一种理念，即他们不仅仅是在销售或修理产品，而是在从事更伟大的事业。如果说苹果的成功有什么奥秘，那就是这种灌输：公司让员工觉得高贵。该公司明白，很多人如果觉得自己在追求某个崇高目的，就会放弃对钱财的竞逐。
That empowerment is important because aspiring sales employees would clearly be better off working at one of the country’s other big sellers of Apple products, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, if they were searching for a hefty paycheck. Both offer sales commissions.
这种赋权是很重要的，如果有抱负的销售员工渴望丰厚的薪水，他们显然不如去为同样销售苹果产品的其他大型卖家工作，如AT&T和威瑞森无线。这两家公司都提供销售提成。
“It’s not at all common but there are sales agents at Verizon who earn six figures,” says Jonathan Jarboe, who managed Verizon Wireless stores in Oklahoma until last summer. Several former Verizon Wireless managers said that annual pay ran from $35,000 up to $100,000 in rare cases, with the sweet spot in the $50,000 to $60,000 range.
“虽说不是很常见，但威瑞森的有些销售代理可以挣到六位数，”乔纳森·亚尔堡(Jonathan Jarboe)表示。他曾负责管理俄克拉何马州的威瑞森无线零售店，去年夏天离职。威瑞森无线零售店的几位前经理介绍说，年薪从3.5万美元起，少数人可以拿到10万美元，一般是在5万至6万美元之间。
At Apple, the decision not to offer commissions was made, Ms. Bruno said, before a store had opened. The idea was that such incentives would work against the company’s primary goals — finding customers the right products, rather than the most expensive ones, and establishing long-term rapport with the brand. Commissions, it was also thought, would foster employee competition, which would undermine camaraderie.
布鲁诺说，苹果在零售店开张之前就决定不提供销售提成。其思路是，这样的激励与公司的首要目标（为顾客找到最合适的产品，而不一定是最昂贵的产品，并和品牌建立持久关系）相悖。销售提成也被认为会鼓动雇员之间的竞争，损害同事情谊。
Tellingly, Apple doesn’t use the word “sales” to describe members of its sales team. They’re called “specialists.”
颇能说明问题的是，苹果并不用“销售”来称呼销售团队的成员，而是称他们为“专家”。
By minimizing the profit motive among employees, Apple does more than just filter out people interested primarily in money. It also reduces the number of middle-aged and older people on the payroll, said former managers. This isn’t about age discrimination, they said, so much as self-selection. Generally, an Apple employee is someone who can afford to live cheaply, is not bothered by the nonstop commotion of an Apple Store and is comfortable with technology.
通过把雇员的利润动机最小化，苹果所做的不只是淘汰主要对钱感兴趣的人。前管理人员表示，它也减少了中年和老年雇员。他们说，这与其说是年龄歧视，不如说是自我选择。通常来讲，苹果的员工是这样的一个人：能够以较低的支出生活，不会被苹果零售店里永不停息的嘈杂所烦扰，而且对科技如鱼得水。
People who fit that bill tend to be in their early or mid-20s, the former managers said. They typically don’t have children and many don’t have spouses, which means they are relatively inexpensive to cover with health insurance.
前管理人员表示，具有这些特征的人多半是20出头或25岁左右的人。他们普遍没有孩子，很多也没有配偶，这意味着为他们提供医保所需的支出相对较少。
There is no shortage of college graduates eager to dedicate themselves to Apple’s vision, on Apple’s terms. That includes people like Asher Perlman, another former technician from a store in Chicago, who joined Apple three years ago, when he was 22.
有源源不断的大学毕业生渴望着献身于苹果的愿景——按照苹果订立的条款。这包括像阿舍·珀尔曼(Asher Perlman)这样的人，他曾经是芝加哥零售店的技术员，在三年前他22岁时加入苹果。
“I’m happy with my time at Apple and where it landed me,” says Mr. Perlman, who now works in information technology. “I wouldn’t recommend it for my 35-year-old friend with a kid, but it works for someone who is 22 years old and doesn’t want to enter the business world yet.”
“我很满意自己在苹果工作的那段时间，也很满意这份工作给我带来的转机，”现在从事信息技术工作的珀尔曼表示。“我不会推荐35岁有孩子的朋友为苹果工作，但对于还不愿踏入商业世界的22岁的人来说，这是个合适的选择。”
When Work Piles Up
当工作量如山倒时
The iPhone, which arrived in 2007, brought unprecedented crowds to Apple Stores. The company tried to hang on to its culture, but naturally it changed, and in many ways, say some former employees, for the worse.
2007年问世的iPhone，给苹果零售店带来了空前的客流量。苹果试图坚持自己的文化，但这种文化自然而然地改变了，而且（据一些前雇员称）在很多方面变糟了。
Arthur Zarate, who joined Apple in 2004 and later worked as a technician at the store in Mission Viejo, Calif., says his training left him with a sense of ownership and pride. For a while, he loved the job, in large part because it delivered the simple and gratifying sense that he was helping people. There were time constraints on technicians — 20 minutes per customer — but because the store was rarely swamped, he usually had more time than that.
亚瑟·萨拉特(Arthur Zarate)在2004年加入苹果，后来在加州米慎维埃荷市的一家零售店担任技术员。他说培训让他有一种主人翁感和自豪感。最初一段时间他热爱自己的工作，主要是因为工作带给他一种简单的满足感，即他在帮助别人。技术员的工作有时间限制（每个顾客20分钟），但由于店里很少有拥挤的时候，他通常有更多时间。
“My customers knew me by name,” he said. “That was a big deal.”
“顾客叫得出我的名字，”他说，“这可是了不起的事。”
He had already begun to sour on the job when in 2007, he said, his store began an attendance system whereby employees accumulated a point for every day they did not come to work; anyone with four points in a 90-day period was at risk of termination.
他说，2007年公司开始实行考勤制度时，他对这份工作已经感到厌恶了。缺勤一天累积一分；在90天里累积四分的雇员，面临终止劳动合同的风险。
“It was a perfectly good idea, but the thing that was terrible is that it didn’t matter why you couldn’t come to work,” Mr. Zarate said. “Even if you had a doctor document some medical condition, if you didn’t come to work, you got a point.”
“考勤制度完全是个好主意，但可恶之处在于这一制度不管你是为何缺勤，” 萨拉特说，“即便有医生证明你有某种身体状况，只要你不来工作，你也会得一分。”
Mr. Zarate, a former heavy smoker, said he was once out for two and a half weeks with severe bronchitis and was on the verge of dismissal when he e-mailed Ron Johnson, then the retail chief, who intervened on his behalf.
曾是烟鬼的萨拉特的表示，他有一次因为严重支气管炎缺勤了两周半，就在他面临被解雇之际，他给时任零售主管的罗恩·约翰逊写邮件，后者为他出面解难。
“I just wrote and said, ‘This isn’t fair. They don’t look at why you were out,’ ” he recalls. “And he saved my job.”
“我就这样写道：‘这不公平。他们根本不管你为何缺勤，’”他回忆说。“然后他就拯救了我的工作。”
To meet the growing demand for the technicians, several former employees said their stores imposed new rules limiting on-the-spot repairs to 15 minutes for a computer-related problem, and 10 minutes for Apple’s assortment of devices. If a solution took longer to find, which it frequently did, a pileup ensued and a scrum of customers would hover. It wasn’t unusual for a genius to help three customers at once.
据数名前雇员称，为满足顾客对技术员不断上升的需求，他们所在的商店实行了新规定：现场维修电脑被限定在15分钟内，其他苹果设备则被限定在10分钟内。如果需要更多时间找到解决方案（这种情况经常发生），工作就会积压，顾客就会一窝蜂地挤在柜台前。一个“天才”同时服务三个顾客的情形并不少见。
Because of the constant backlog, technicians often worked nonstop through their shift, instead of taking two allotted 15-minute breaks. In 2009, Matthew Bainer, a lawyer, filed a class action alleging that Apple was breaking California labor laws.
由于工作不断积压，技术员经常在上班期间不间断工作，而不能按规定享受两段15分钟的休息时间。2009年，律师马修·贝纳(Matthew Bainer)提起集体诉讼，指控苹果违反了加州劳动法。
“State law mandates two 10-minute breaks a day,” Mr. Bainer said. “But geniuses had these lengthy queues of customers that made it all but impossible for them to stop even for a few minutes.”
“州法律规定一天要有两段10分钟的休息时间，”贝纳说，“但‘天才们’面对着排长队的客户，几乎不可能停下来休息几分钟。”
The lawsuit was denied class certification in June of last year. Mr. Bainer pursued the matter in separate lawsuits and achieved what he described as “very favorable settlements” for 10 plaintiffs.
法庭在去年6月拒绝确认这宗诉讼为集体诉讼。贝纳以分别诉讼的方式继续打这个官司，并为10名原告争取到他所称的“非常有利的和解协议”。
Not long after the class-action lawsuit was filed, a technician named Kevin Timmer who worked at the Woodland Mall store in Grand Rapids, Mich., noticed an added step when he logged onto a computer to punch out of work.
在提起集体诉讼后不久，在密歇根州大急流城Woodland 商场店工作的技术员凯文·蒂默(Kevin Timmer)注意到，当他登录电脑“打卡”下班时多了一个步骤。
“This window popped up and it said something like, ‘By clicking this box I acknowledge that I received all my breaks,’ ” Mr. Timmer recalled. “The rumor was that was because some guy in California had sued.”
“有个窗口跳出来，上面的文字大意是：‘点击该对话框表明我得到了全部休息时间，’”蒂默回忆说。“有传言称，那是因为加州的某个人告了苹果。”
Mr. Timmer said he and other technicians in the store clicked the box even when they didn’t take any breaks. It wasn’t because management insisted they stick around. It was that any down time would slam already overburdened colleagues with even more work.
蒂默表示，他和店里的其他技术员在没有休息的情况下也会点击该对话框。他们没有休息，并不是因为管理层不让他们休息，而是因为任何小憩时间都会给已经负担过重的同事带来更多工作。
“We were all in the trenches together,” he said. “Nobody wanted to leave.”
“我们都在同一条战壕里，”他说，“没有人愿意离开。”
With time limits, several former employees said, came another change at their stores. Technicians had always been able to spend a few hours of their shift in the repair room, providing a little away-from-customers time. In many stores, that ended. Walk-in demand for tech help was so great that when the bar was open, management at these stores decreed, it was to be staffed by any technician in the building. Repairs that could not be done at the bar would wait. As a result, the late shift in the repair room at these stores ended not at 10 p.m., but at midnight.
多名前雇员表示，实行时间限制后，他们所在的零售店又出台了新的变化。此前，技术员上班时可以在维修间里工作数个小时，不用面对客户。很多零售店结束了这种安排。鉴于有这么多客户上门到店里要求技术帮助，这些店的管理层规定，“天才吧”营业时，在店里上班的所有技术员都要在此工作。“天才吧”搞不定的维修需要等待。结果，这些零售店维修间的晚班下班时间不是在10点钟，而是在午夜。
The pressure didn’t faze everyone. Multitasking, for instance, did not bother Asher Perlman.
并不是所有人都被这种压力搞得心烦。以阿舍•珀尔曼为例，他就没把同时处理多项任务当成太大的一回事。
“I’m a low stress kind of person to begin with and I didn’t find it unmanageable,” he said. “I know others did.”
“我本来就是个承受力比较好的人，所以我不觉得工作难以应付，”他表示。“但我知道有人无法应对。”
As the crowds grew, the company’s “thank you” gestures started to seem a little tin-eared. Jordan Golson, who now blogs at MacRumors, a site that keeps tabs on all things Apple, said that for Christmas 2010, he and others at the store were given a fleece blanket and an insulated coffee thermos.
随着客流量增加，公司对雇员的“感恩”姿态开始变得空洞了。如今在追踪苹果动态的MacRumors网站写博客的乔丹·戈尔森表示，2010年圣诞节，公司只给他和店里其他员工发了一条绒毯和一个保温咖啡壶。
Mr. Zarate fared no better at one quarterly meeting for employees. Mr. Johnson made a videotaped appearance and referred to a wonderful surprise that managers were about to spring on everyone in the room. Free iPads for everyone was the expectation.“Then the lights went down, and we had a party in the store, with games and dancing,” Mr. Zarate said. “And we all got two tacos from a taco truck. That was our surprise. Two tacos.”
萨拉特参加的某次员工季度会议也同样令人失望。约翰逊出现在事先录好的视频中，他告诉员工，经理会给房间里的每个人送上一份重大惊喜。大家期待的是每人得到一台免费iPad。“灯暗了下来，我们在店里举行了聚会，有游戏和跳舞，” 萨拉特说。“然后每人拿到了来自餐车的两个墨西哥卷饼。那就是我们的惊喜。两个墨西哥卷饼。”
Rising to the Top
平步青云
Like many who spoke for this article, Shane Garcia, the former Chicago manager, talked about Apple with a bittersweet mix of admiration and sadness. When he joined the company in 2007, he considered it a place, as he said, that “wanted you to be the best you could be in life, not just in sales.”
与其他就本文接受采访的人一样，芝加哥苹果零售店前经理谢恩•加西亚在说起苹果时感到苦乐参半，既有钦佩，也有惋惜。当他在2007年加入公司时，他曾认为苹果“想要让你尽展芳华，达到人生最佳境界，而不只是在销售上表现出色。”
Three years later, his work life seemed tense and thankless. He had little expectation that upper management would praise or even notice his efforts.
三年后，他的工作生活似乎既紧张又无人赏识。他几乎不再期待上级管理层会赞赏（或甚至注意到）他的努力。
Sales employees, Mr. Garcia and others noted, deal with stresses all their own. Though commissions are not offered, many managers keep close tabs on sales of warranties, known as Apple Care, and One to One, which is personal tutoring for a fee. Employees often had goals for “attachments” as these add-ons are called — 40 percent of certain products should include One to One, and 65 percent should include Apple Care.
加西亚和其他人都指出，销售员工完全依靠自己来应对工作压力。尽管没有销售提成，但很多经理密切追踪保修服务的销售，这些服务包括苹果支援服务(Apple Care)和一对一培训(One to One)，后者是一种收费的私人辅导。这些被称为“附件”的附加服务往往是有销售指标的：40%的某些产品应当包括One to One，65%应当包括Apple Care。
For a sales employee who wanted to climb Apple’s in-store ladder — to technician or manager, for instance — those numbers were important. And in terms of keeping employees invested and striving, so were the rungs on that ladder, something that is true across retailing.
如果销售员工有意攀登苹果零售店内部的职业阶梯，例如晋升为技术员或经理，这些数字就相当重要。就保持员工对工作的投入和努力而言，职业阶梯上的那些梯级也很重要，这是整个零售行业的普遍真理。
“There was always something being dangled in terms of different positions,” says Danielle Draper, a former manager at a store in Hingham, Mass. “‘You’ll need to do this if you want to become a creative,’ that kind of thing. There was never perfection. You could always tell someone they needed to work on something.”
“总有一些不同的职位在员工面前摇晃，吸引着他们，”曾在马萨诸塞州欣厄姆担任零售店经理的丹妮尔·德雷珀(Danielle Draper)说，“‘你要做到这个才能成为创意人员’之类的话。完美是永远实现不了的。你总是可以告诉对方，他们需要在某方面努力。”
At some point, employees either realize they won’t rise, or rise as high as they can.
到了某个时刻，雇员们意识到自己要么不会晋升，要么达不到与自己的能力相称的高度。
“The disillusionment settles in not because of pay,” says Graham Marley, the former part-time salesman, “though pay is part of it. What happens is you realize that they want you to spend years there, but there is no actual career path.”
“幻灭感随之而来，不仅是因为薪酬，”前兼职销售员格雷厄姆·马利(Graham Marley)说，“尽管薪酬也是部分原因。真正的原因是你意识到公司想让你奉献多年时间，但不给你实实在在的职业发展道路。”
An exception is the job of manager, and Apple is often diligent about elevating from within its ranks of high achievers. Though not always. After the great influx that started with the iPhone, the company started plucking managers from stores like the Gap and Banana Republic. From employees who were around in the pre-2007 era, you can hear occasional laments about the gradual “Gapification of Apple.”
经理这个职位是一个例外，苹果经常积极从内部提拔业绩突出的人，尽管并不总能做到这一点。在iPhone带来大量新人之后，苹果开始从Gap和香蕉共和国(Banana Republic)这样的零售店挖管理人员。2007年之前进入公司的员工，有时会哀叹苹果在逐渐“Gap化”。
In recent years, the level of unhappiness at some stores was captured by an employee satisfaction survey known in the company as NetPromoter for Our People. It’s a variation of a questionnaire that Apple has long given to customers, and the key question asks employees to rate, on a scale of one to 10, “How likely are you to recommend working at your Apple Retail Store to an interested friend or family member?” Anyone who offers a nine or 10 is considered a “promoter.” Anyone who offers a seven or below is considered a “detractor.”
近几年，一项名为"NetPromoter for Our People"的员工满意度调查，捕捉到了一些零售店存在的员工不满。这项调查是以苹果多年来面向顾客的调查问卷为蓝本设计的，其中有一个关键问题：“你有多大可能会把苹果零售店的工作推荐给有兴趣的亲友？”，让员工在1到10分的范围内打分。打9分或10分的人被认为是“促进者”。打7分或以下的人则被认为是“毁誉者”。
Kevin Timmer said the internal survey results last year at the Grand Rapids store were loaded with fives and sixes.
凯文·蒂默表示，去年大急流城店的内部调查结果有很多5分和6分。
“We discussed it in a monthly meeting and our manager had tears in her eyes,” Mr. Timmer recalled. “She said something about how humbling these results were, that they want to fix any problems, that her door is always open, and so on.”
“我们在月度会议上对此进行了讨论，我们的经理眼里噙着泪水，”蒂默回忆说。“她感叹这些结果令人谦卑，说他们想要解决任何问题，还说她的门随时敞开，诸如此类的话。”
Similar figures were found in Chicago.
芝加哥的零售店也得到类似的调查结果。
“By then,” Mr. Garcia said, “it wasn’t a surprise to upper management because it was clear that many geniuses wanted to leave. There was a ceiling. It wasn’t a glass ceiling because everyone could see it.”
“到那个时候，” 加西亚说，“这对上级管理层来说已经不是意外，因为显然有很多‘天才’想跳槽。大家头顶上有一个天花板挡着，难以晋升，那不是什么玻璃天花板，因为谁都看得见它。”
Mr. Garcia would eventually quit Apple, and walk away from a job that paid a little more than $40,000 a year, when stress-related health issues sidelined him long enough to put his job at risk. He had no doubts that the company would easily find a replacement.
加西亚最终从苹果辞职，告别这份年薪4万美元出头的工作，当时工作压力引起的健康问题迫使他持续“靠边站”，使他的工作面临风险。他不怀疑公司能够轻易找到替代者。
“There was never a shortage of résumés,” he said. “People will always want to work for Apple.”
“从来就不缺简历，”他说，“总有人愿意为苹果工作。”