In Spain there are eleven official Apple stores and in them Hundreds of employees work every day to give us the best service and experience when buying or repairing an Apple device. The company’s philosophy is clear, and they want us to we feel at home when we visited one of their stores.
Those who work at Apple, apart from representing one of the most important companies in the world, enjoy certain benefits such as discounts on products. Such discounts can be applied individually and in a controlled manner to a few friends and family members.
This Apple employee in Valladolid abused his benefits
As in everything, there are people who abuse their position and what is a personal benefit they want to turn into a certain business. The famous saying “You shake their hand and they take your arm” perfectly defines what happened to this employee of the Apple Store in Valladolid.
It all started after an anonymous complaint made in 2022, where a store employee informed Apple that inequalities were taking place with regard to the distribution of shifts, work on holidays… and finally some unethical behaviour by one of the employees.
From this letter to Apple’s superiors, a internal research in the store interviewing 17 employees one-on-one. In addition, all the tools used in the Apple Store were reviewed, such as repair management, employee discounts were authorized, customer sales were reviewed, etc.
After the investigation, indeed, There was an employee who had violated several rules from the company and had even spoken to a colleague outside of working hours asking if she wanted to have sex with him, something that led to the employee’s dismissal.
Said employee He accumulated several acts punishable by dismissal At Apple, it is worth noting that employees can give discounts to family or friends if they wish, but within certain limits and in certain order. This employee went a step further:
- He reviewed the Client photo galleries without permission.
- He gave away an Apple Pencil to a client.
- He did a friend the favor of processing within warranty the defect of an iPhone case that was broken due to use without consulting the manager.
- Did discounts for celebrities to get free tickets to concerts.
- He wrote to a colleague at four in the morning on WhatsApp asking if I wanted to have sex with him.
- It resulted in customer comments on twelve occasions a wrong email address thus avoiding the arrival of negative comments.
A list that, as you can see, is not short and also They were not sporadic actions. This is what the judges argued in their ruling. 438/2023 of April 11where it is clarified that the dismissal was justifiedalthough he is not accused of sexual harassment since his colleague did not report it.
The worker tried to get his job reinstated and compensated with 120,000 euros.
After being fired, the worker filed a complaint for unfair dismissal and alleging that he was fired after requesting a reduction in working hours at work. In exchange, he asked for reinstatement and 120,000 euros as compensation. After reaching the courts of Castilla y León the request was denied after it became known that the investigation had begun before he requested the reduction of working hours.
In addition, the judges highlighted that the alleged facts and the date appeared in the dismissal letter, so They considered that nothing had been violated by the company. In addition, the practices were continuous even though the worker knew the rules to follow and the company policy.