After Apple

is by not working for Apple.

The ol’ finances were looking a little thin 8 months after I’d left. Yes, they were a couple of good opportunities I was working on, but they sorta fell through, and I was jumping from temp assignment to temp assignment. I also found out that Apple-qualified people here in Malaysia had a tough time looking for a job, due to the fact that the almighty MCSE ruled supreme.

I was keeping an eye at Apple in Malaysia after I left, and they never did get a replacement for me. So one day, I thought, what if I worked for them on contract?

Being on contract, I would not be an Apple badged employee. I would just be another guy who did stuff, like the janitor or the guy who fed toner into the copy machine. Except that the pay was much better.

So far I’ve been on retainer for 3 plus months, and life is good. I do presentations on Apple products and I conduct training for customers. And best of all, I no longer have to take responsibility for Apple, who merrily shoot themselves in the foot every once in a while.

Case 1:

Customer is an educational institution and the first 1 to 1 deployment in Malaysia. The top guy is a cunning weasel who was not above pulling every trick in the book to get the most for-free out of every purchase. He would email me, then my boss, then my bosses’s boss, and the US. The deal finally went through, but only boxes. No training for the IT staff. No training for the users.

Had I been an Apple-badged employee, the normal drill would be to provide the free training for them, on top of any additional work that I had to do in the normal course of events. I would also have had to apply for the special price request (which required me to check with finance daily), update my boss (also daily), and try to placate the customer (and heaven help me if I did not respond in time).

But I was not an Apple-badged employee any more, was I? Snigger.

So tomorrow I will be sending him a quotation for 3 days of training, plus some additional services (his wireless network was barfing each day) at market rates. I could also tell him to please contact Apple for the other stuff.

Sweet.

Case 2:

Customer was a school that wanted a Mac Lab. They craftily approached a few dealers, resulting in massive catfight between the various channel partners, and lots of phone calls to Apple. Each channel partner swore on their mamma’s name that they were the first to engage the customer and they were the only one worthy of consideration. After the last shot had been fired, the winner found that they had barely enough margin left, so they left boxes on the customer’s doorstep (more or less). The IT guys over there were Mac experts. On OS 9. And these were Intel Macs.

Apple-badged employee me would have have to perform janitorial duties (teach them how to use and maintain the Macs). For free.

Contract me just sent them a quotation.

Ha ha ha.

Case 3:

Customer was a college that was the second 1:1 deal in Malaysia. First 1:1 with MacBooks too. Their first buy resulted in approximately 10% failure rate, with the affected MacBooks randomly shutting down without warning. A call to the ASP was not helpful, as the spare parts to resolve the issue were constrained (meaning, the ASP didn’t know when they would be available).

Apple-badged me would have had to endure daily phone calls from the customer demanding a resolution to the problem, with perhaps choice remarks about my ancestry and sexual acts that the customer wishes I would perform with myself or my parents.

Contract me just advised them to overbuy 10% (they were a 1:1 – the faulty units could be repaired, and kept for the students coming in next semester). And by the way, here’s the phone number of the local Apple office.

Heaven.

In summary, I work when I want to, I only do stuff i like, and I don’t have to get kicked in the nuts for Apple’s latest self-inflicted pedal penetration by a firearm.

I do pity the account manager at Apple though, but rather her than me.

I’ll buy her a really nice dinner next week.