After Apple

A pastiche of my daily routine in my last year at Apple.

7.00 am
Wake up and realize I have to go to work. Groan.

8.25 am
Reach the office.

8.35 am
Go out for breakfast while mail downloads.

8.50 am
Come back to the office to find the VPN connection has dropped (again). Groan. Reconnect to VPN (after trying multiple servers) and download mail again. Let’s see… postings from field engineers mailing list, angry customers demanding Steve’s email address, coworkers emails, and the obligatory viagra ad (have to say that apple’s spam filters are pretty good).

9.05 am
Hear anguished scream from next cubicle. Marcom Manager is suffering from SBOD and she has,has,has to get this one email out. Try to help, not good. Hard disk sounds suicidal.
“Did you backup like I told you?” I ask. Deer in headlight look. Of course, she was too busy. Break out the recovery tools and try to salvage something from the smoking remains.

10.30 am
While still trying to recover MM’s hard disk, AppleCare Manager wanders over and asks about some technical issue that appeared on the net. This guy is a new hire and doesn’t know much about Macs. Research his issue and email him the results.

11.15 am
Manage to salvage most of MM’s stuff and put it into one of the office demo units so that MM can continue work. One thank you and boom, I no longer exist in her universe. At least I got the thank you.

11.20 am
Reseller calls, asking for demo units for an event happening tomorrow. Slope of to the equipment store to look for machines. One old PowerBook and one iBook G3. Rest have been loaned out and not returned. Start calling resellers. Beg, plead, threaten, cajole to return the units back. Maybe 2 out of 10 would actually do it.

12.25 pm
Customer walks in the front door demanding to speak to someone in charge. His iBook would not work with his DSL account and the service provider knows bugger all about Macs. Sit down with him and calmly explain that this is the Apple Site representative office and not a Service Center and recommend him to go to one. Customer makes pointed remarks about my ancestry, Apple’s ancestry and expresses the sincere wish that the whole lot of us be transplanted to a warmer climate. O-kay. Show him how to do it, get another thank you (yay!) and he leaves.

12.40 pm
Go out for lunch.

1.05 pm
Back from lunch. Everyone else is still out so I have blessed peace in the office. Download emails again. Among the emails: – If I send mail from a pc to the mac, can it be read? – Does iSight work with eMac? – How do you configure your Mac to work with a Bluetooth Handphone?

1.45 pm
The reseller who needed machines calls again. He does not have anyone to pick up the machines. Could we send them over? Sigh. Ok. I tell him I’ll leave at 3pm and meet him at the venue.

2.10 pm
General Manager wants me to teach him iLife. I do so.

3.30 pm
Finally leave the office with my van full of equipment. When I arrive at the exhibition venue, no one around. Schlep equipment into presentation room. Hang around until the reseller arrives. Set up equipment for him.

4.15pm
In the middle of setup. Marketing Manager calls. It seems that she can read her old mail but can’t get new mails. Oh, OK. VPN not set up (It was a demo machine). I ask her what she had been using to send mail out? DotMac account. Oh, OK. Try to get her to install VPN over the phone, with the result that both of us begin to get seriously annoyed and frustrated. Finally I tell her that I’ll be over once the setup is done.

5.30pm
Back in the office again and install VPN for MM. Reseller calls. Doesn’t know the password on the demo machines. I tell him that it’s ‘password’. Another happy camper.

6.50pm
Find out about new products on the website. Big whoop. Start downloading materials from Apple Sales Web for MM to pass to PR agency. Read up on specs. Field angry calls to my mobile from customers who purchased Macs 2 days ago.

7.10pm
Another reseller calls. It seems the monitors that he ordered are pending Customs clearance, since they think it’s a TV and not a monitor. Email him the documentation which I sent to him months ago.

8.00pm
Reseller 1 calls again, something wrong with the machines I set up. Go there again. DVI to VGA connector broken (these things seem to break with depressing regularity). Go buy one at VAR and put it in.

9.35pm
Dinner at McDonalds.

10.01pm
Friend calls. PowerBook crash. We meet at a cafe and I help him pull out everything of value and reformat. Another thank you (yay!)

11.00pm
Read mail, read websites, so I don’t appear to be an utter idiot when somebody asks me about a new product tomorrow.

12.00am
Sleep.

By the way, this is a GOOD day.