Mark Wainwright

A little while ago I used this blog to talk about what was actually going on in my life, and it seemed to go quite well. And then I came back from Vancouver, and had nothing to write about, so it all kind of fell apart. Well, now I’m back there, two years later, I’m returning to that tradition. Starting with this.

Perhaps the biggest talking point the past few weeks — certainly in the world of technology — has been the terribly sad news about Steve Jobs. I have never been an Apple person — we’re talking somebody who has never even owned an iPod — but I was surprised by how much his passing affected me. He may not have been a philanthropist or, by all accounts, always a great person to work for, but here was someone who had the vision to think up beautiful and innovative products that people just loved. It’s testament to him that he is considered a visionary despite not inventing anything outright — not the personal computer, the MP3 player, not even the tablet computer — because, instead, he looked at them and made them immeasurably better. Ryan Block said an interesting thing on TWiT a couple of weeks ago — that he credited the massive public outpouring after Steve’s passing to a subconscious feeling amongst many that, because someone made things that fitted their desires so well, they felt like someone out there really understood them. That’s incredibly powerful — and maybe even true. I don’t know.

And the interesting thing is that, as I heard the awfully sad news, I was actually waiting for a phone call from his company, to tell me whether they wanted to give me a job or not.

You see — he writes, with the air of someone spilling the beans — quite a few weeks ago I put in an application to work as a Genius in one of Metro Vancouver’s four Apple Stores.

Looking back, applying to be a Genius was recklessly ambitious. I’m still a PC user, and I’ve only had my first Apple product — an iPad 2 — for a couple of months. I may have picked up a lot about iOS along the way, but it’s hard to think that 95% of a Genius’ work is anything other than fixing genuine and thorny problems with MacBooks and iMacs. The position gives two weeks of training at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, but even with that I’m not sure I’d be up to scratch right away.

However, it quickly became apparent that they’d consider me for the Specialist role instead — the people who do the selling and the advising and the smiling on the shop floor — which worked in my favour, because it was something I knew that I could actually do, and was almost qualified for.

Now, if I know one thing about Apple it’s that they wouldn’t look kindly on me detailing the application process on a public blog. Or at all. There was even talk of signing non-disclosure agreements, although that didn’t happen in the end. So all I’ll say is that it was fast-paced, informal and overall, actually quite enjoyable.

The process ended on a Monday and I was told that I’d hear back by that Friday, so to stay close to my email and phone. I spent the rest of the week in mild fear, constantly replaying the interviews in my mind. As the days passed I became less and less confident, with the memory of more and more silly or inopportune things I had said during the process. In the past I’ve been a ridiculous disaster in job interviews, and although I was a lot better this time round, there was still a fair bit of fail left over.

But then, at the very last minute — 6pm on Friday — I got a phone call: would I like to join the team as a part-time Specialist?

Yeah, I think I would.

Not a lot has happened since then. I’ve been to the store twice to fill out many, many forms — an oddly large number of pen-and-paper forms from a company that even scans new employees’ documents by taking an iPhone picture of them. But still, at least the forms were beautifully designed. (Oh, such forms!) The next thing is some intensive training, starting at the end of this week, and then I should start working in the store shortly thereafter. I’m not sure how well the job will suit me, but I’m really excited to give it a go.

But if I was ever unsure about whether I really wanted to work for Apple — which I was — seeing the reaction to Steve Jobs’ passing couldn’t help but put those fears to rest. After filling out forms in store last week, I spent ten minutes reading post-it notes that visitors had left with their personal tributes to Steve. They covered an entire wall of the store.

Whatever you may say about Apple, there aren’t many companies you could work for that inspire that sort of emotion in people. And that’s not nothing.