Apple Fitness Chief Accused of Toxic Workplace Culture and Harassment (macdailynews.com) 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Jay Blahnik was a fitness superstar with a book and nearly two decades of work with Nike before he was hired in 2013 to work on the Apple Watch. He became known inside Apple as the creator of the watch's signature fitness feature: three circular bands that people could complete through the day by exercising, standing and burning calories. Marketed with the tagline "Close Your Rings," the concept helped galvanize sales of Apple's first breakout product after Steve Jobs's death. But along the way, Mr. Blahnik created a toxic work environment (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), said nine current and former employees who worked with or for Mr. Blahnik and spoke about personnel issues on the condition of anonymity. They said Mr. Blahnik, 57, who leads a roughly 100-person division as vice president for fitness technologies, could be verbally abusive, manipulative and inappropriate. His behavior contributed to decisions by more than 10 workers to seek extended mental health or medical leaves of absence since 2022, about 10 percent of the team, these people said.
When confronted with Mr. Blahnik's behavior, Apple moved to protect him after an internal investigation. The company settled one complaint alleging sexual harassment by Mr. Blahnik and is fighting a lawsuit by an employee, Mandana Mofidi, who said he had bullied her. Mr. Blahnik stayed in his job after company officials said their investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing, according to interviews and Ms. Mofidi's lawsuit, which she filed against Mr. Blahnik and Apple last year in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The tension inside Mr. Blahnik's division speaks to workplace dysfunction at the heart of one of Apple's signature health initiatives. These employees said the company was more willing to protect a star executive than address the concerns of rank-and-file workers.
When confronted with Mr. Blahnik's behavior, Apple moved to protect him after an internal investigation. The company settled one complaint alleging sexual harassment by Mr. Blahnik and is fighting a lawsuit by an employee, Mandana Mofidi, who said he had bullied her. Mr. Blahnik stayed in his job after company officials said their investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing, according to interviews and Ms. Mofidi's lawsuit, which she filed against Mr. Blahnik and Apple last year in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The tension inside Mr. Blahnik's division speaks to workplace dysfunction at the heart of one of Apple's signature health initiatives. These employees said the company was more willing to protect a star executive than address the concerns of rank-and-file workers.
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Also botanists. And fugu chefs.
Re:toxic (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Pretty much all HR people do, to describe a workplace that is shitty and abusive, but does not meet the legal definition of harassment (which is much more narrow than most people know).
It is, in fact, a standard term, and has been for decades.
But don't let that stop you from hating on people who see you as a subhuman barbarian (and they do).
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Re: Rookie Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
If 10% of the people youâ(TM)re interacting with are willing to risk their career to call out your asshole behaviour, then I can guarantee you that 80% are thinking it.
Re:Rookie Numbers (Score:4, Informative)
Only 10% of his team is upset with him?
No, 10% were traumatized enough to seek professional help. In my world, if you traumatize ten people so badly in your professional career that they need therapy, you probably shouldn't be managing anyone, and whoever is managing you should be doing everything possible to limit your interactions with other people.
Just saying.
Re: Rookie Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
In my world, I realize that 10 percent of people are SJW crybabies, and I do everything I can to avoid them.
To be blunt, avoiding a tenth of your team because you don't want to deal with them is a guaranteed way to fail as a manager. Part of being a competent manager is figuring out how to manage each individual, and the way you do that is going to differ depending on who you are managing.
Yeah, there can be a point where individuals simply are unmanageable, and at that point, that's where HR comes in. If they are doing their jobs and are not creating a hostile work environment, you should be able to manage them. As a boss, it's literally your job to manage the people you have working under you. If you can't figure out how to manage 10% of your reports, you should consider a career that doesn't involve managing people. This really isn't a grey area. Some people just aren't good at managing.
And denigrating a big chunk of your workforce with slurs like "SJW" really is exactly what they're talking about when lawyers use the words "creating a hostile workplace" in the context of wrongful termination claims, etc. You cannot adequately manage people if you don't respect them. So it's not just bad from the perspective of the company not doing as well as it otherwise could. It's also bad from the perspective of losing very expensive lawsuits, which is why managers who say things like you just said tend not to be managers for very long.
Managing people to produce amazing products is HARD WORK. It often takes flamboyant, offensive, exciting, and interesting personalities from all walks of life to provide that type of management and to take the risks necessary to both attract passionate people and keep others away.
True, but it also often takes people over them jerking a knot in them when they go too far and cause serious harm to their underlings. Contrast Steve Jobs [exec.com] before he got fired for being a tyrant and Steve Jobs after his return. The best thing that can happen to leaders like that is getting fired and having to try again at a new company, and hopefully learning from their mistakes.
Leadership != bullying, and one of the greatest failures in the modern world is people thinking that the only way to lead people is to scare them into doing what they have to do. Because when you scare people into doing something, they're only going to do just enough to not get fired. They're going to keep their heads down and not rock the boat. And when something genuinely is badly broken, they're not going to say anything out of fear of getting blamed for pointing it out. When you inspire people, that's when they do their best work. That is how you manage people — not by intimidation, but by inspiration and by example.
Re: Rookie Numbers (Score:2)
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Good god. It is people like you who are making workplaces safe for SJWs rather than people who get shit done.
Given a choice, I'd gladly deal with ten people who are overzealous at fighting for their coworkers, friends, and neighbors to be treated fairly (the folks you're calling SJWs) on my team over even a single person who berates their coworkers rather than helping them learn to do better, without the slightest hesitation. The first group may be a pain in the ass if they feel you're doing the wrong thing as a boss, but at least they're a pain in the ass for a good reason. The second group is just a pain in th
Re: Rookie Numbers (Score:2)
No, it doesnâ(TM)t.
Oh by the way, we are talking about some stupid features on a watch. Itâ(TM)s not like heâ(TM)s driving the third army across Europe to defeat the Nazis.
Itâ(TM)s all so effing stupid. Fire the guy and move on.
There are 50 others that could take his place and do fine without the cruelty.
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Working hard for a boss has a lower ROI than working hard for yourself. If your boss is bad you should always sabotage him.
If your boss looks at you the wrong way you should download the entirety of his online footprint and install malware on his pc. Then tell his wife he's having an affair.
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Heh I'm honestly a nice guy most of the time, maybe it's an overrepresentation of antisocial personality disorder in management, but the worst asshole managers seem to disregard my history when evaluating risk and instead take me at face value as polite nerd.
One of them the dude's affair with his secretary was an open secret in the office. How he didn't think this was a major personal risk is beyond me.
Re: Rookie Numbers (Score:1)
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I can't speak to the pre-NeXT Steve, but the post-NeXT Steve was known for being extremely demanding, and expecting a high level of competence, and getting angry if you tried to bulls**t him, and even for berating people's work, but not for threatening people or berating the people themselves, to the best of my knowledge.
I've got to admit ... (Score:3)
... This seems more surprising than the usual claims of a toxic workplace, because it comes out of Apple -- a company I thought was "all in" on these feel-good topics like diversity.
On the flip-side? My personal experiences throughout my life tell me it's FAR from uncommon for people who make careers out of coaching or fitness activities to be some real jerks who mouth out their biased feelings at any opportunity.
So not much to go on just based on this small blurb and stats like 10+ employees complaining about him.
I will say, I just completed a mandatory training about "workplace harassment" and it was over an hour of going to every length to itemize all manner of perceived wrongs. Total overkill, no matter how valuable one thinks the idea of annual training is on the topic. Some of the topics were just laughable, like the section reminding us of phrases not to use, to prevent offending indigenous people. Can't refer to any impromptu meeting as a "pow wow" for example, or talk about "circling the wagons". Honestly just people searching for things to imagine are offensive. (Circling the wagons was a legitimate term for the method American settlers used to protect their group while traveling. It's quite the stretch to be offended by its usage because you're a Native American and it somehow triggers you.)
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So not much to go on just based on this small blurb and stats like 10+ employees complaining about him.
Again, as dgatwood said [slashdot.org], it's not 10 people simply complaining about him, it's him causing those people to be traumatized by him.
Re:I've got to admit ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, you are unfamiliar with what an asshole [google.com] Steve Jobs was. Toxic behavior is not only nothing new at Apple, it appears to be a core value from day one.
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Toxic behavior is not only nothing new at Apple, it appears to be a core value from day one.
This, 1000%
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One of my favorite things about steve jobs is dragging his name through the dirt in front of fanboys.
He's a piece of shit who had the radical idea of making computers as easy to use as in a movie... and what if I put it in a more visually appealing case like all my music equipment!
He wasn't anyone special he just happened to get money while he was young enough to have idea and be excited. He killed the newton declared the ipod was what people wanted, made some cool looking ads, and then market forces turne
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If what he did was so simple, why didn't anyone else do it before he did?
Despite his faults, he was still a legend. And his fanboys will still be his fanboys no matter what you say.
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I honestly spend a lot of time thinking about this and not just in the context of steve jobs.
Nobody did it before because of old people running everything and old people are fucking stupid.
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Also he smelled bad and pooped in his pants sometimes, just a little, because of all the fruit and enemas and other dumb shit he was into.
Well, how would you treat pancreatic cancer? Follow the doctor's recommendation for surgery? (Which he did eventually do, nine months later, because the acupuncture wasn't working for some odd reason.)
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I was coming here to post this exact thing. I remember the Cupertino campus posting sentries outside to warn employees when he was coming so they could all get to their desks and 'look' busy. He had a habit of firing people for walking in the halls for a power trip, and if you spoke to him without being spoken to first, automatic termination. He was a petty, pathetic tyrant who got his jollies by bullying people who couldn't stand up to him, refusing to acknowledge he ever had a daughter, and denying the ge
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True, but often those words are simply not used because there are better words out there that aren't offensive to use and are much more meaningful.
Like your impromptu meeting - impromptu is a hard word, but it can also be called a gathering, or hallway meeting. If you went for coffee, a coffee klatch.
It's like using words "master" and "slave" when referring to things that don't have such a relationship (primary and secondary, for example).
So it's less "take offence" and more "update your vocabulary" with mo
I've never heard THAT before (Score:4, Insightful)
Rolls his eyes.
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the reason for being a star "A progress bar shaped like 3 rings" and some catchphrase.
Truly the genius of our times, now because of this scandal we may never know what other gifts he was to bestow on mankind.
A toxic exec at Apple? I'm shocked! Shocked! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, not that shocked.
Apple is pretty much known for this. Not everybody is cut out to work in that sort of environment, and this is not saying anything bad about the people. Some people handle bullying and tyrannical leadership causing levels of stress that others would completely break under. Does it result in better products faster? Maybe, maybe not. Is it a hostile work environment? You bet.
Of course, not all of Apple is that way. But the biggest problem with Apple is that internal mobility sucks (or at least this used to be the case), so when you realize that you're in that sort of situation, it's hard to get out without leaving the company. If internal mobility weren't so broken — if you could just look for internal jobs, click, have a half-hour call with the hiring manager, a quick team fit meeting, and suddenly be working under somebody else a few days later, then bullies wouldn't be able to hold power, because nobody would continue working for them. The more you restrict internal mobility, the more bad managers damage companies.
And it doesn't surprise me in the least that this story would be about Apple Fitness. Besides that particular team being more likely to attract jock-like folks who are more likely to be bullies in general, statistically speaking, it's also a team whose product seems almost deliberately designed to bully its users. I tried it, and pretty much ignore it now. The point where I lost interest was when they wanted me to pay money for a subscription just so I could tell it whether I'm walking or cycling so that it has some idea of how much exercise I'm getting. When I bike for an hour or more and it says I haven't "closed my move ring", whatever the f*** that means, my reaction is that this product is junk designed to squeeze money out of users, rather than serve their real-world needs.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that a product that is quite obnoxious in its behavior is run by a leader who is accused of toxic leadership by a large number of his employees; the only question in my mind is whether his toxic management style made the product bad or the product being bad made his management style become toxic.
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Oh, there too? Saw the same shit in a different part of Apple.
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When i was in the military I used to just push bosses like this down the stairs. They wouldn't know who did it but they would know there's now accountability for their behavior and the system doesn't protect him from his reports much more than it has protected his reports from him
Instant attitude change.
Down the stairs he goes. When he stops, nobody knows.
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All that tracking is free, you don't have to pay extra for that.
I know there are some paid fitness things, but I believe those are for guidance videos, etc....not something I used, but I use my watch and phone to track my bike rides, swimming, weightlifting, etc....and that is all free, no extra charge.
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All that tracking is free, you don't have to pay extra for that.
Only if you have an Apple Watch. The iPhone app can track steps, but it has no UI to let you switch modes to tell it that you are cycling unless either A. you are doing a Fitness+ workout (which costs money for the subscription) or you have an Apple Watch (which costs $$$).
So it laughably says that I walked 6,477 steps over 2.26 miles and used 195 calories, when in fact, I biked 20.6 miles, mostly with a headwind, and used probably O(800) calories. How it can think I'm walking at those speeds, I have no i
So... (Score:2)
...the guy was investigated and found not guilty but the employees still keep throwing pitchforks at him? Is it possible that the guy is just a good, hard-working exec but the others can't keep up with his pace and commitment and they try to oust him to feel a little bit better themselves, like not the bunch of losers they may be?
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I can't tell if this is sarcasm? You do know he's famous for doing squats and inventing a funny progress bar?
Question (Score:3)
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Were all of the offended parties under the age of 25 by any chance? We have been working hard to make society increasingly hypersensitive and mentally ill.
Let's say they were. That still makes him a toxic manager.
If you're sending 10% of your subordinate to therapy because you traumatized them, what do you think the other 90% of them think of you.
Now let's talk turnover of those subordinate - some of the other 90% will quit before long with such a toxic environment. Really think the new batch to replace them will be 'tough-as-nails-folks'? Try again, they'll be the younger crowd, because the experienced, older ones know to avoid shitty managers, especially o
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Collectively though, I think our culture is headed for some sort of trouble.
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I have worked harder than you and it has shown me the flaw in your thinking soft boy.
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I let the apple manager guy know he was a sensitive faggot and he was a total snowflake about it.
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The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress.
- Socrates
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Whois Mandana Mofidi :o (Score:2)
“In a high-profile lawsuit filed against Apple and one of its top executives, Mandana Mofidi [usaherald.com] claims she was forced to choose between an unjust performance improvement plan or resigning after reporting unequal pay and participating in an investigation into her supervisor’s conduct.”
Me too (Score:1)