Apple employee blasts 'worst boss ever' as he quits 'dream job'

A disgruntled Apple employee has broken the code of silence surrounding the prestigious company. In an online strop, mobile designer Jordan Price blames the "worst boss ever" for forcing him to walk out on his "dream job."

It seems it's surprisingly easy to get a job at Apple: Price went through just one interview, which took less than an hour. Ecstatic at his hiring, Price was impressed with the attention to detail of the backroom boffins at Cupertino, where "Every single pixel, screen, feature, and interaction is considered and then reconsidered."

But once he started the job -- a job he says required a "substantial pay cut" in order to get Apple on his CV -- Price struggled with inflexible hours, constant disruptive meetings and overzealous security.

And then there was his boss.

Price claims his superior aimed "personal insults shrouded as jokes to anyone below him... (and) direct and indirect insults to me. He started reminding me that my contract wouldn’t be renewed if I did or didn’t do certain things. He would hover over my back (literally) like a boss out of Dilbert and press me to finish some mundane design task that he felt urgently needed to be examined.

"I felt more like I was a teenager working at a crappy retail job than a professional working at one of the greatest tech companies in the world." Ouch!

• Apple Store employee says it's 'like working at McDonald's, with better pay'
• Apple's longest-serving employee looks back over 34 years with Steve Jobs

And so, one day, Price "wiped the iPad data clean, put the files I had been working on neatly on the server, left all their belongings on my desk, and I got in my car and drove home. I left a message for my boss and told him he’s the worst boss I had ever encountered in my entire professional career."

On the plus side, "The food in the cafe was great."

This is all just Price's side of the story, of course. What makes it interesting is that so little detail emerges from the secretive confines of Cupertino, but it certainly sounds like a high-pressure environment, with a culture of secrecy and exacting standards set by notoriously demanding founder Steve Jobs.

Have you ever had a horrible boss? Ever ditched a job in spectacular fashion? What was the worst job you ever had? Throw a strop in the comments.