Apple of my Eye

I've decided NOT to teach summer school this year. It sucks. It may be decent pay for short hours, but the kids are hideous, the school is boiling hot, the administration could not be less supportive, and it affords me no break whatsoever from my day-in-day-out dealings with kids.

Every summer I say I'm not doing summer school. Every summer, I end up doing summer school.

This year will be different, however. I've purposely let the "apply by" date come and go for the summer school positions. I never even so much as glanced in the direction of the link to the online applications. Screw that.

But, of course, I am in no financial position to be a woman of leisure. That comes later in my teaching career. For now, I'm still one of the "yung'uns" who has to work her way through the summer vacation.

I was in the Apple Store a couple of weeks back and it dawned on me that it might be kind of fun to work there. So, I filled out an online application (they don't even have paper applications; they just gave me a little card thingee with the web address where I could apply. Of course...they're Apple. D'uh!) and was asked to come to a group interview this afternoon.

There were a few interesting things going on at the interview...

First of all, I was the lone woman among 4 male interviewees. However, the managers conducting the interview were both women.

I was wearing whatever I wore to work. Considering the fact that today is completely subarctic here in lovely New England, that would have been a pair of white Gap pants, a pink LL Bean sweater, and my red clogs. One of the guys was dressed in jeans, a button down shirt and a pair of hipster sneakers. He seemed to have the complete Apple look. Now, I know they say that you should always dress one level above what the company usually expects when you go on an interview, but considering the fact that Apple store employees galavant around with cheeky sayings on their t-shirts, and open-toe flip flops, the two guys who showed up in the 3 piece suits looked very nice, but a little out of place. Then there was the guy who showed up in the complete porn star/aging gangsta outfit. You know what I mean...the long, greasy braid going down his back, the shirt open three buttons so I could make out the slightest supconne of chest wig, the Mr. T. gold medallion starter kit, and the badly executed eyebrow piercing. Pathetic.

The aging gangsta showed up fifteen minutes late, took 3 calls on his cell phone (until the interviewer had to eventually tell him to turn the thing off), and continued to ask questions about the as-yet-unreleased Apple iPhone. He kept asking if there were any advance models, if, as an Apple employee, he'd be able to purchase one before the public, and whether there was any printed information with specs and other technical crap. Although the women told him over and over that Apple employees are literally kept in the dark as much as possible about new products (in the interest of copyright/trademark security), he kept asking questions in this vein.

When one of the managers asked us what, other than iLife applications we like to use on our Macs (and she specifically said, "other than the iLife suite...no not iPhoto, iTunes, etc), this asshole, even after listening to all of us talk about non-Apple suite products, said, "I love my iTunes!"

And, last but not least, when the other woman asked us to discuss a time when, as a retailer or in any service capacity, we could describe how we had successfully or unsuccessfully handled a situation, we all illustrated our strengths as customer service people by talking about how we'd put out fires on our jobs and left people feeling satisfied, or at least less upset than they had been when they came in. Aging gangsta started talking about how a salesguy at Best Buy was giving him a hard time. Ahhh....talk about missing the point, BOPO!

I don't know what'll happen. They said they would take three weeks to get back. Whatever. I'm not really holding my breath or awaiting too anxiously. There's always some idiotic job out there to be had. But I have to admit, the official Apple job title of "Mac Nerd" really appeals to me. The power of knowing how to do everything on the Mac is a little intoxicating. Sure, sure...I could help customers and earn a few bucks, but with the knowledge of the extensive Apple training, I culd unleash the full potential of my own Mac and then....well, I'll wake up the freakin' world!!

Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

My back's totally effed up today. Gotta get on the heating pad.