Magic Shop

A short article by Alex Frankel, who’s book Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee, will be published in late October.

He compares the jobs he worked at Starbucks, Gap and then finally Apple -

Apple employees help sell $4,000 worth of product per square foot per month. When employees become sharers of information, instead of sellers of products, customers respond. [...] Gap started employee orientation on the wrong foot by showing us a video about the perils of employee theft. Starbucks handed out Orwellian handbooks telling us to “Be Authentic.” Such approaches produce cynicism and engender a fake sense of belonging, if any at all. Apple treated us like adults.

I had to link this because it’s a rare day when you find something worth reading on Digg.