My Experience at Apple
No way to say if this is a legit story, but I have seen this kind of thing at Intel, a subsidiary of comScore and a subsidiary of Siemens.<p>Toxic workplaces exist, and toxic teams within divisions exist.<p>When I saw this stuff, I was too young and inexperienced to recognize bad behavior and recognize my own power to go fish for something else. I did not have immigration issues to think about though, which adds a whole other dimension to getting stuck in something like this.<p>One time I saw this guy in the company softball league charge the pitcher over whether a pitch was a strike or a ball. It was absolutely not okay and the senior manager in the division said the guy was a &quot;teddy bear&quot; and &quot;had kids&quot; and that I needed to drop it.<p>I learned later that he was a major producer in sales engineering for the company&#x27;s leading product.<p>Sometimes you get unlucky and are placed in a group like this. Powerful engineers probably have more control during the interview stage, and some companies can be good at getting rid of bad behavior. However results and loyalty can outweigh bad behavior.<p>Something that people should think about is their ability to manage emotional barriers. This isn&#x27;t something I was taught growing up, but I hope young people are more familiar about asserting these today.<p>If people take advantage of you in your personal life, and you have the bad luck of being placed into a workplace with predatory personalities, they will take advantage of you there. Since that is your livelihood, it can be scary.<p>I&#x27;d advise people who experience toxic workplaces or think that they are in them to consider whether they themselves are lacking in the ability to assert their own boundaries and act on those assertions when they are broken repeatedly.<p>If you are not able to do this, use your health insurance to seek professional help because you&#x27;ll need this ability in professional and personal environments for the rest of your life. Better to learn about yourself now than later.<p>If you don&#x27;t have health insurance, there are communities on reddit and elsewhere that support people dealing with emotional abuse. Which is basically what this stuff is. You can learn a lot by reading and anonymously participating in these communities.<p>If at all possible get professional help even if it means cash out of pocket, because your mental health is among the most valuable investments you can make.