After Apple

I went to the opening of the new store at The Domain in Austin recently. It’s the second one in Austin and the second opening I went to. Although, curiously, I had more access to the store as a non-employee than I did as an employee, which is kind of odd.

Which is to say that I was able to get in to the soft opening as a guest as well as arriving early enough to be one of the first to enter on the real opening day. It’s kind of worth it, this place is huge. The word going around the employees is that this is Apple’s largest 45’ store that’s not a flagship store, and when you see inside you realize how entirely plausible that is. It’s huge.

Here’s the opening video and a Flickr photoset of the better photos of the opening.

You’ll never see it like this again.

It’s an often-told story that when Jobs went around finding his first batch of suckers, his sales pitch was to ask them if they wanted a job, or to change the world. After working at Apple for any length of time you realize that this effectively means, “Would you like a salary you can live on, or are hopes and dreams good for you?” Pity the sucker that took that job, for he changed the world and ate crackers and soup.

What Steve really meant, though, outside of stiffing the poor bastard, was that Apple concentrates on creative talent and hutzpah rather than on the meager details of business or life. What matters is the gem, the gold, the shiny new thing that’s going to change the world, and all that little stuff that’s needed to get that done, well, some other fool’s handling that, working the magic, making it work so that you can work on The Next Big Thing.

Sadly, that bohemian view of what it is to work in the age of computing never quite left California.

They kicked me out right before I left.

I joined the retail division as a “creative,” some ethereal position where I was promised I would get to “create” all day (hence the name) and train people how to be create as well. I was so desperate to work for the company that I had always loved that I agreed to work part-time. I joined some truly amazing people, and some really obnoxious people.

The first few months, management didn’t know what to do with Creatives. If we weren’t selling, then we were wasting payroll, in their minds. Why we made more than a specialist is beyond me, if that were the case. Lots of discussions later, management left us alone to do what we were told by corporate to do.

Six months later, we get a new manager. The manager immediately plays favorites and changes things just for the sake of change — you know the type — alpha dog pissing on everything just to mark his turf. All the while, he played that fake-cheerleader rah-rah bullshit.

He invented a position (“lead creative”) that still doesn’t exist, and talked about nothing but numbers — how can I personally sell more .Mac? (This isn’t Best Buy, buddy; I’m not a salesman. I’m here to teach.) The person who was named “lead creative” was the one I called the “Creative on the Mount.” Enough said.

They kicked me out right before I left.

I joined the retail division as a “creative,” some ethereal position where I was promised I would get to “create” all day (hence the name) and train people how to be creative. I was so desperate to work for the company that I had always loved that I agreed to work part-time. I joined some truly amazing people, and some really obnoxious people.

The first few months, management didn’t know what to do with Creatives. If we weren’t selling, then we were wasting payroll, in their minds. Why we made more than a specialist is beyond me, if that were the case. Lots of discussions later, management left us alone to do what we were told by corporate to do.

Six months later, we get a new manager. The manager immediately plays favorites and changes things just for the sake of change — you know the type — alpha dog pissing on everything just to mark his turf. All the while, he played that fake-cheerleader rah-rah bullshit.

He invented a position (“lead creative”) that still doesn’t exist, and talked about nothing but numbers — how can I personally sell more .Mac? (This isn’t Best Buy, buddy; I’m not a salesman. I’m here to teach.)