Looking Back -6 Years Later (my first week at Apple)
6 years ago this week, I took a job at Apple Computer - working in Austin. I thought it would be my dream job, but it was a nightmare.
Here is an excerpt from my journal… written during my first week at Apple. (the first few weeks were spent in training.)
The noise made by Virgina (Yes, purposely spelled that way) Lopez every 30 seconds was unbearable. Her large nose created a vacuum effect within her mucus membrane, causing her to suck more air than any of the other “temporary assignment workers” stationed at Apple. To make matters worse, it was allergy season. Had it been just the sniffles or a common cold, I could handle it. However, this was a seasonal problem that never ended as Austin, Texas weather seems to only know Spring and Summer. I am trapped in a training conference room. I can’t stop staring at the letters D and S on my keyboard. I am trying to think of how many people have sat in this very classroom. How many TAW’s (the coded designation for us “contract workers”) have been trained here with the hope of one day being badged into the Apple Culture? Being badged is the official promotion of going from a contractual and low paying agreement to being respected enough to finally be allowed to use the corporate workout facility. How humiliating that one of the distinctions between an official employee and someone who is contracted to work here is based on your eligibility to exercise. Doesn’t this say something about the state of our country when the new class divide is based on working out? Every time I walk down the hall and see a fat man, I try to give him a special TAW nod. My nod is more of a scrunched up face of disgust or a shocked gasp of air. Indignation! In that casual bathroom break when I see my fat brethren I can only hope that he realizes how we must stay together in our fight. That much like the Nazi’s forcing Jews to wear yellow identification ribbons during World War II, the fattest people of Apple were clearly those who were contractual laborers. My overly sensitive imagination began to wonder what went on in the corporate gym, located in the breezeway of buildings 2 and 3. I could picture Tom P, a loyal Apple employee for over 3 years talking to Tom G from Accounting who had been with Apple for 5 astounding years. Tom A would say, “Look at those fat, slobbish contractual workers. TEMPS!” Tom P would feel a twinge of guilt and say, “Yeah, fucking fat asssss-s-s-s-s-s” with a stutter at the end… a trademark of Tom P’s guilt. Secretly he would think, “Was I so different when I started out as a TAW here… My God how five years can just…fly by.” Then looking in the mirror as he flexes during a bicep curl, he remembers his once rusty brown hair that is now going grey. The class divide between those allowed to use the workout facility and those not was hardly an issue to anyone. I seem to be the only one that is outraged that there was any differentiation between the elite working out and working for a generous wage and the peon contractual workers wearing baggy clothes to cover our soft spots and earning enough to pay for a Honda. Yet, we all had passed through this training room. Those D and S keys gummed up by a substance that resembled caramel, but could easily have been Tom P’s saliva or snot released during a stuttering fit. Then again, the big nosed Latina could have caused it when I wasn’t looking. I stared at the encrusted letters, hoping I would never have to enter an order that used D or S in it. You can imagine my disgust when Cindy, the denim loving trainer revealed that a whole product line began with the letter D and ended with a /S. My eyes were fixated on those letters and my rage grew as Virgina snorted. It took every amount of restraint to not scream, “You did this!” Violence would ensue, but not because I am a loose cannon or a misogynist. Rather… dear reader…You can not even begin to understand the noises she made when she would snort. There is no level of patience that can be exercised in situations like these. There was a reason Virginia wasn’t married and it was because no man in his right mind could handle someone who was that allergic to life. The last straw for me was that in addition to her proclivity for all things nasal, Virginia Lopez was as stupid as she was unknowingly annoying. Which is why when she would talk, which was seemingly nonstop, I would check my ears to see if blood was coming out of them. On my way home on my third day of work, as I walked down the breezeway and saw the two Tom’s working out in the elitist company workout facility, I wondered, “What had happened to my sanity?”
