Apple Store Boylston Street
So the bittersweet day has come: at long last, the Boylston Street Apple Store is opening today.
When I first interviewed for the Mac Genius job at Apple, I naturally asked if they were planning to open anything in Boston proper, as all the existing stores ringed around the city. Naturally, she said that they were looking into it, but wanted to find a landmark location that would be viable for 25 years or more.
Obviously, they finally found what they wanted, and have taken the time to make it worth that 25+ year investment they're looking at.
So I took a job at one of the other stores, with the expectation that some day, if I did well, there would be the possibility to transfer to a hypothetical downtown Boston store.
Working at Apple became an interesting part of my life almost from the beginning. While I was at training in California, I found out that I was going to become a father. One of the unexpected perks of being a dad-to-be with a rotating retail shift is that you can schedule around all those ob-gyn visits, sonograms, showers, etc. On the flip side, having to work weekends meant being at work when my wife was home from her job, having fewer evenings together, and so on. The good comes with the bad. After my son was born and grew old enough, he -- I swear without any prompting from me -- learned to recognize the Apple logo -- "ap-poh! ap-poh!" And if my wife brought him to one of the other malls with an Apple Store, he'd beg to go in -- "daddy! daddy!"
I'm still not sure what I feel about this, but nevermind :-)
You meet fascinating people working at the Bar in a town like this. I swapped an iPod for a Nobel Peace Prize winner, I swapped a hard drive for the guy that invented desktop spreadsheets, and I helped and learned from a guy that has climbed Everest several times. Plus lots of others too, average people, all ages, all skill levels.
It could also be a frustrating place to work at times. The office politics are the same as anywhere, that's fine, but what constantly surprised me was that, for a technology company that had some brilliant Unix-based tools available, there was a very low-tech, labor intesive, "sneaker net" approach to doing lots of things. And, of course, being at the bottom of the corporate totem pole meant having little leeway to influence or improve the situation there.
Plus, a Mac Genius is a good job for a college student to get promoted to from a sales job, but Geniuses weren't really ever promoted to a higher technical role at the company. Sure, they could go for a role in Cupertino, or a retail management job, but in practice neither one almost ever happened at any of the stores I was in contact with. If you want to move up, you may have to move on.
When the time came to start recruiting for the Boylston store, I of course applied, as did several others. I interviewed for the job, and thought the manager was fantastic -- he's going to go a great job with the place, I'm sure. I ended up being offered a Genius job there, but things were changing on several fronts for me, the job wasn't going to be quite what I had been anticipating, one thing led to another, so I ended up leaving Apple instead.
There are things about Apple that I miss, but one of the best ones to get back is simply weekends and evenings with my family. Is any job worth giving up such things? I didn't mind so much at the time, but in hindsight, I'm not sure it is.
Still and all, maybe I'll drop by the new store this evening to check it out, and say hello.
Good luck to them :-)
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11:30 PM Edited to add:
Ended up visiting, and seeing some former co-workers. Hi Tom, hi Jason.
Didn't bother bringing the real camera, as I figured Flickr (et al) would be flooded with pictures of the place by tomorrow, but the iPhone at least got some blurry personal pics for me. Thanks iPhone.
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