The time that I worked at Apple was brutally hard work. If we're talking about work environment, I think many people reading that article have no concept of how difficult a job it is, how high are the expectations, and how many hours the average engineer is putting in there.

This is a very difficult job which can be extremely stressful for a long duration of time. As a society we tend to laud grueling hard work rather than recognize that it's probably the worst aspect of the work environment by far.

As far as TFA goes... it appears to be reporting on "leaked" emails telling a one-sided narrative with no attempt to validate the claims. Not to diminish the claims being made, but I think this is technically called "storytelling".

Taking it a face value though, it seems tame in comparison to other 'scandals'. I simply do not expect that people will constantly remain professional. They will need to blow off steam, and sometimes the way they do that will not be fully inclusive, or necessarily politically correct. Yes, sometimes men actually complain about their wives at work -- this is not shocking to me. I don't like that employee complaints seem to be poorly handled; all employees should be valued and listened to at least.

None of what I read in TFA I really understand to be a hostile work environment, as the term is defined. Is "toxic" supposed to be a new term to describe feeling uncomfortable or not getting the promotion you wanted? Apple's work environment is certainly extreme, but I think for reasons very much apart from gender.