I just got back from signing my employment forms at Apple. This means I was allowed to go behind the big shiny silver door into the back rooms and hang out with the managers etc for a half hour. It was the most fun I've ever had doing paperwork in my life.
The store I'm working at is in this enormous and expensive mall. You know the kind I mean, Anthropologie on one corner, Gucci down the corridor, Louis Vuiton, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren and Betsy Johnson across the hall. Nice place.
I went in to sign papers at 8 this morning, meaning everything but Apple is still closed, and even that is only open for people with appointments. There was one of those black elastic lines in front of the door, to keep people from poking around in the store just yet. I hesitated for a moment on seeing it, but one of the employees looked up and said "Are you an employee?" I smiled and said "I am now." She laughed, welcomed me and told me to go on in.
It was so cool to be able to say that. I just can't help but smile when I tell people I work for Apple. =]
But yeah, back to the subject, fun paperwork. It sounds like an oxymoron, I know, but it was actually fairly amusing.
Here's what I saw behind the big silver door. A great big, warehouse. And some random offices stuck in corners. There were random tables standing about the place, those plastic pop-up ones that you get for $20 at Walmart, with chairs haphazardly placed around it, and bits of wire and cables and stuff sort of thrown on top. There are computers all over the place back there, and not just the ones in boxes. You'll pass the shelves of products, and just randomly wedged between a box of keyboards and another of mice, you find a great large iMac. Why it is just sitting on the shelf, I have no idea. Maybe they use them for inventory or something. Cables, cords, iPod docks, and other objects in various states of disrepair are in large bins labeled with things like "Sellable," "Repackage," and "Doesn't Work". It seems a very elementary but efficient organizational system. Its like the IT office at any given company, except the wires are less tangly. At any rate, just by looking around, you can tell that even though this is a hugely successful retail company, behind the shiny store front, its really just a bunch of computer geeks running things.
My paper work was digital, which was nice and expidited the whole procedure a lot. Then it was print the pdf and sign a few things and voila, I am officially working for Apple! I was filling out the forms in the office with a couple of managers, who were emailing and counting money and other such things. This was another time I noticed that they really are all just tech geeks. While in there, they just start talking about how the count from last night was short several hundred dollars. As you may know, usually managers don't discuss this sort of thing in front of random employees, and on top of that, they were remarkably cavalier about the situation. They were more puzzled by the lack of funds then they were worried about it. Of course they were concerned, but it wasn't in that uptight, nervously worried way.
At one point some long-haired guy pokes his head in and says "goodmorning." The managers said hi and continued working, I looked up and smiled. I then realized that neither of the managers had actually stopped looking at their computers during this exchange of greetings. How did I realize that? After the guy left, one manager turned to the other and said, "Not sure who that was, I didn't recognize the voice." She responded "Me neither. Must have been one of the new guys." They looked at me, and I gave a brief description of the guy. "Oh..." said the one. "That was probably Andrew..... Or maybe Phil." The other nods while still typing, "Yep, probably," she said. LOL
I'm going to love working there. =]
[I have a 3 day training seminar on the 24th, after which I'll be on the schedule. Woot!]
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