We have reality television to thank for the winner’s skepticism. I’m more shocked about making a link to Rolling Stone, the boring old hippie rag that lost its last inkling of musical credibility with its top albums of all time story in 1987.
Have I ever spoken to Steve Jobs? Never. Would I recognize his voice? Probably not. If I ever do get a call from him, the HUD on my phone at work better not fail me.
This story of looking back is way overdue (since February 7th) but since the events surrounding my backfill went on for several months, led to a key friendship, my inevitable transfer to the group I remain with and some painful lessons; it remains relevant enough to blather on about.
So I was nearing my first year with Apple as an official employee. Thanks to the over-reaction to the Y2K computer problem, Apple had a tremendous Christmas with the iMac (bigger than 1995). How great it was is probably peanuts compared to what it is today courtesy of the iPod, iPhone, iTunes Store and all the combined lines of computers. Regardless, the entire AppleCare (support) organization was undergoing a major growth spurt. When I returned to Austin in late 1998, you almost knew everyone on a first name basis in the building. By 2000, Apple had ramped up to include a new sister site in Sacramento, and Austin now incorporated support for the entire gauntlet of products. This also meant the need for more managers to lead and/or oversee the additional teams. I leapt at the opportunity because I had acquired a taste for greater responsibility through PowerComputing while working with Kris and Rob. Being involved with quality control was more my forte yet management seemed to be a good lateral move either for the interim or permanently.
I received my chance in late January after a conversation with a guy named John who was in charge of the decision at the time; he shortly left Apple to get involved in one of Austin’s numerous DotCom companies that I’m sure went bust in a year. Mind you this wasn’t permanent, it was temporary or a backfill in Jargonese. In English it means I was only keeping the seat warm until someone was hired for the gig. Usually the advantage goes to the person acting in the role (like an incumbent) but it is never a guarantee which I accepted and wasn’t naive about.
It was probably one of the craziest four months I had ever worked too. The days zoomed by which I hated. When you’re on the phone, taking random tech support calls, you tend to wish the day would move by at a good clip. Most customers are cool yet one awful call can just ruin the day and sometimes the rest of the week. The key thing though is that while on the phone, a tech can justify a paycheck by showing tangible results: calls taken, hours/cases logged, resolutions happening, reports filed to Engineering and occasionally compliments from customers via e-mail. Management’s productivity is riddled with an obstacle course of meetings, paperwork, projects and (my least favorite) interruptions. Now couple it with some set objectives, namely completing a certain number of call evaluations. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying it isn’t a situation for those with poor time-management skills because as soon as you walk in the door, get a cup of tea and sit down in your cube, something will be on fire and before you catch your breath, it’s 5 PM. The day is over. You think about what you achieved and sometimes it isn’t much. Hence, you know why some people resent their managers.
I’m not fishing for sympathy. I’m trying to illustrate the whirlwind and shift in perspective I experienced. I never thought managers were lazy, totally ineffective or worthless yet I felt they had it a little easier. HA! Herding my four cats would be a walk in the park after what I realized then. I had a headache in the frontal lobe of my brain for a month before I could figure out how to compartmentalize the various crises I handled; I gladly shared this piece of wisdom with other backfill managers who came aboard a couple months later.
The one aspect I enjoyed the most was call evaluations. Initially it can be perceived as spying on your co-workers, trying to find fault with them but it isn’t. The objective is really to discover what they do well, which tools at their disposal functioned and get anecdotal evidence of what customers are asking about. There are times the call does go poorly because of the customer, the tech, the tools, the weather, perception and a dozen other things. The tricky part there is to find the silver lining to put in the evaluation since nobody wants to read a completely gloomy, negative report. These are also challenging. While listening to the call, I was trying to resolve it as if I were the tech; checking to see if the means to answer the questions were present. Often there was extra research to do before turning in a result.
Through the calls I discovered the various strengths the techs on my team had. These were then converted into opportunities to get them signed up for beta tests (Mac OS X was on the horizon), projects and best of all, permanent offers from Apple (the majority were temps). I also took the time to speak with them individually. Use the lessons my friend Lee taught me: find out what motivates each person and most importantly, how to work with any who are looking for another job. The latter thing tends to be perceived in a negative light, not so. The key is to get it in the open with the team member and to work out an agreement, primarily, wanting to help the person land the new job without leaving under a dark cloud. For example, Lee would surprise people whenever he said (paraphrasing), “I want to know when one of my people is looking for a new job. Not to fire them but to help. Then I won’t be caught off guard when the other company calls up for a reference. I can give well thought out responses to their questions.” Here, I had two people in this situation. Once we got this aired out and I expressed my willingness to help in exchange for them carrying out their core responsibilities, I never sweated anybody bailing suddenly and I bet they felt good relieved because they could put their time Apple down on their resumes/job applications without worry.
Eventually, I had to vacate the position at HR’s behest by June. I wasn’t pleased, more like pissed due to all the hard work I had performed. The manager I had agreed to a point but it wasn’t his decision. The spot wasn’t permanent in the organization so it had to be rotated with another person for another cycle. I did get offered something similar to what I do today, mainly working with the development of techs. This unfortunately didn’t suit me after a couple months and when the powers that be did make the team manager job permanent, I was beat out by the new incumbent, I seriously considered quitting Apple. Instead, I decided to leave the desktop division and joined the server group as a plain-old phone tech where I have been for a decade, a story for another day probably in the Fall). It seemed like a bittersweet, lateral move but after I came up to speed at my speciality (then) called Macintosh Manager, I never regretted it a moment.
The four months did remain a positive experience despite the (initially) bad outcome. I had little interest in ever managing for at least a couple years. I liked it yet I wanted to only worry about me for a while again. I gained a greater understanding of the larger picture in how call centers work and the personalities (or fiefdoms) operate. It made me more prepared to take on the role I have today, something I thought I would never do again. (Trust me. I had been offered Senior Specialist in 2008 and refused it outright due to my Evil Twin.) Thankfully, I have a management team who didn’t give up on me. They let me develop some more, keep the spot in mind and when the opportunity arose again, I took it because I felt ready to get back on the horse I fell off of 10 years ago.
Today, those lessons I learned in 2000 remain, I just don’t let them completely cloud the entire picture. Much has changed, including me.
Will I ever be a manager again? I don’t know. Maybe. Currently, I am enjoying what I do too much and there’s a ton of things to do. Even in the early 21st century, computer technology continues to be a work in progress; it doesn’t stabilize for a decade without minor changes like cars, televisions or publishing did in the recent past. Refinements and improvements will continue indefinitely which will be accompanied with learning curves. It reminds me of the old joke my UNIX teacher told me. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the sun has enough fuel to continue another five billion years. The bad news…I-35 will be completed in the dark.
What about the good side effects of this backfill?
What happened to the first one? I will defer that to Helen because I bought Somara’s first one (from an overtime contest at work last year) and gave it to the Matriarch of the Silder Republic of Potomac. A birthday-Christmas-anniversary present which covers a couple years.
Moving back to Somara, she earned this one as well but through her customer-handling skills. Hers were so good she scored a perfect grade for an entire quarter (13 weeks) which is no small feat in the world of phone support or any interaction with the general public; stats will prevent it from happening forever, aka my brother-in-law, the big shot doctor ordering at Taco Cabana. As a reward for this achievement, Apple awarded Somara a new 16G iPod Nano! I imagine she gets to choose the color.
A brand new iPod coming our way couldn’t have happened at a better time too. One of the customized features we wanted in our new Honda Fit was the USB hook-up to plug in an iPod; no more crappy Austin radio for us! After we dropped the money on its deposit, I proposed to Somara that as soon as Sam told us the car was in CA, we would then buy a refurbished iPod or if the price was right, a new one. Then the Fit was all set. She has amended the plan. This new iPod will remain her personal property and the one I bought her in 2006 (I think it’s a second generation Nano) will become the car’s. Not a problem for me. Four Gigs of tunes goes a long way (11 days on average if the 4000 songs were played).
Apple’s iTunes Store achieved this milestone this afternoon. Pretty impressive since the downloadable part of the store was launched less than seven years ago.
I’m curious about two things in regards to this achievement:
One lucky person will be receiving a $10,000 card. I wonder if Apple makes one or just credits the winner’s account the monetary amount?
I can go back to making a couple purchases I put off so I wouldn’t skew with the results. As an employee, I’m not eligible for such drawings/contests and it would be embarrassing if I won.
Overall I’m happy that the snow the Austin area didn’t stay very long. Somara and I drove into work yesterday around 730 AM. By then the rain was transforming into sleet. Most co-workers arrived on time; no massive calls of co-workers being “sick.” Everybody was glued to the windows after the sleet transformed into visible snow flakes. As the flakes began to stick on the ground, the fire alarm went off. Security informed us it was a false alarm well before anyone made it to the door. I wasn’t too worried. I remembered the fire drill Paul and I endured at 130 AM when we lived at Mashuda Hall; nothing like freezing your butt off in the middle of a Milwaukee Winter while it’s good and dark.
I was more impressed by the lack of overreaction here. The schools in the outlying areas closed early but most places only cancelled their evening activities because many key bridges could’ve frozen over. Our drive home was a cinch. All the roads back were clear with no accidents. The house has snow on the roof which remained until this morning.
Only the wimps at UT went with a major delayed opening, 10 AM. Everything else was business as usual. I had to scrape the ice off my car before heading out. The streets were still normal.
When I went to lunch with friends, all traces of yesterday were 90 percent gone. Oddly my car still had some ice on its roof. I guess I parked in the shade.
I would be a complete liar if I said I wasn’t disappointed though. Sometimes a snow day rocks. An opportunity to stay home, take a nap, drink tea/hot chocolate and catch up on my video games.
On to Spring.
According to the forecast for tomorrow, Central Texas will receive freezing temperatures with a strong possibility of snow and/or freezing rain by 10 AM. How I can’t wait. Not over the conditions making our commute stink. Not over the co-workers calling in “sick” because they can’t drive in such weather. And not over the impending panic of people buying up toilet paper and bottled water.
Nah, the irritation will be the Climate Change Deniers (or as I prefer to call them, Flat Earthers, maybe they should be re-labelled the Teabaggers of Science) flapping their gums about Al Gore, Climategate and the fictional petition of 31,000 scientists agreeing with them. Never mind that Weather is to Climate as a bit is to a Kilobyte or a letter is to a sentence. I’ll just warm my hands with the hot air coming out of their mouths.
Sorry for the (not really) political barb on my site but I decided to lay down the gauntlet on the Faux News crowd since I did reading to arm myself, courtesy of NASA’s site.
…or it’s a broken TARDIS.
Over a week ago, I couldn’t find my checkbook. Yeah, checks, quaint in this era of debit/credit cards and online banking yet there’s no other way I will pay the mortgage (Wells Fargo charges for online payments, unless I do the rest of my banking with them, fat chance), the homeowner’s inanity (again, extra for online), contribute to particular charities (Ecology Action, Girl Scouts, etc.) or pay for my lunch at Apple’s cafeteria. Then there’s birthday presents, namely my annual tradition with Christina!
One recent evening, I clearly remember having the checkbook in my back pocket the whole time at the last Stars’ home game. Then I was certain that I put in my bookbag; always in a particular compartment. A couple days later, I couldn’t find it. Before panicking, I figured it was either on my desk at work, the bedroom or lying on the living room floor. After those locations proved fruitless, I emptied out every compartment of my bookbag…twice. Nothing.
Irritated, I went online to my credit union to pay the $25 to cancel the series of checks left in the wallet. Better to lose the 25 smackers than gamble on some schmuck finding it and going to town writing hot checks. Identity theft is relatively easy because the gate keepers, namely Capitol One, are lazy: CO’s new slogan should be “What’s in your wallet? Certainly not a valid driver’s license or photo ID!” I figured nothing makes a lost object show up faster than spending the money to cancel or replace it. Didn’t work…for a week.
Last weekend, I was fishing through the main pocket of my bookbag and there was the Bugs Bunny logo staring me in the face. Either it was wedged under the inner pocket for my MacBook or the bookbag has a hidden compartment made of material from the Fourth Dimension. I have to go with the former because I shook the damned thing hard enough to make the stray Treasure Island candy fall out, why not this. The check wallet is also gray, not black which discounts the camouflage theory.
Should Somara ever buy me a new backpack, I want it to be like this one!
Physicist William Edelstein and his son Arthur recently published a report on how FTL travel via Warp Speed (Star Trek), KK Drive (Alan Dean Foster’s Commonwealth novels) and Stutterwarp (GDW’s 2300 AD game) would kill the starship’s crew immediately. Other Sci-Fi franchises have the starship leave our universe temporarily to get around the problem along with the bigger one, time dilation (what Einstein’s relativity is about): Hyperspace (Star Wars), Jump Gates/Drives (Babylon 5, Crusade, Buck Rogers 1979 and GDW’s Traveller game) or some rather instantaneous bending of Space to get from point A to B (Battlestar Galactica 2003, Lost in Space 1998, Dune, Event Horizon, Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers, and the Niven-Pournelle CoDominion-Mote in God’s Eye novels). I have no idea how FTL travel works in the Alien movies and who cares in Futurama.
Moving back to the topic at hand, the people who designed the original Enterprise probably put the satellite dish on the front to make it look realistic. Then the writers decided to explain it by saying it was the starship’s navigational deflector to prevent what the Edelsteins claim (congrats to my friend Tarl for beating me to the punch for the explanation; we also had a lively discussion earlier over which side really experiences time dilation). I originally thought it didn’t matter because the Enterprise forms a “warp bubble” around itself to bend time and space, therefore breaking the light speed barrier became feasible; contrary to some physicist in Mexico I saw on The History Channel saying the starship moves the Universe around it. Plus they have low-powered deflector shields to prevent micrometeorites from denting the hull.
I know it’s all fiction and fun but I have been re-watching Sagan’s Cosmos which showed that even in 1980 scientists designed a theoretical starship with a front scoop employing lasers to capture/direct the Edelsteins’ hazardous hydrogen into fuel. It would have to be kilometers in diameter though, deep space has about one hydrogen atom per 10 cubic centimeters. Besides, if one could attain light speed, there’s the transformation to energy and having almost infinite density, how could protons “kill” such a thing?
Maybe Dr. Plait will enlighten me on his blog about it, if he has time.
How fitting that the US won last night against Canada (5-3) in hockey, the game our northern neighbors practically own at every level (from the NHL down to Mites), on the eve of America’s last Olympic triumph in my opinion. This is equivalent to them beating us at all the other three major professional sports (baseball, basketball and football) in the same year. Imagine the World Series, NBA Championship and Super Bowl trophies residing in the Great White North simultaneously? Some idiot would seriously take Stephen Colbert’s advice to go up there and steal them back; which I think was attempted by Canadians the last time Chicago won the Stanley Cup. (Nope, it was only visiting in 1962. The Leafs still cinched it.)
I didn’t watch the game because we don’t have cable but I was catching the updates from NHL.com while enjoying Drag Me To Hell on the PS3. Once the USA had 4-2 lead with half of the third period over, I knew we had it in the bag.
Personally I was surprised. After how poorly America did in 2006, the hockey program decided to follow the approach basketball has done with the NBA. The team is a mix of veterans and up-and-comers, not the most famous Americans: rule number one from Herb Brooks. My hope for Team USA was to play well, lose with dignity against Sweden in the medal round then go home without any snits agains the coaching staff as Mike Modano did. Everything after this would be gravy. Canada once again went with the big names and egos (Crosby namely). They’ve struggled as I predicted; they needed a shootout to beat Switzerland which was the first sign of problems in their line-up. Get ready for the blame-throwing in Ottawa right after Canada is knocked out of the medal round this week.
Today though, 30 years ago, the US upset the Soviet Union 4-3, putting America on course to winning its first Gold in hockey since 1960. Some people say it wasn’t that much of an upset though. I disagree. There were people on the Soviet team who had played together for 15 years while the Americans were a bunch of former college rivals put together by Herb Brooks in less than a year. Most of those Russians were NHL caliber players, namely their goalie Tretiak. Anybody American capable of even getting a tryout contract in the NHL passed on playing “amateur” hockey like the Olympics so Brooks had an AHL-level team to work with. They were also clobbered 10-3 in Madison Square Garden, days before the opening ceremonies by the same Soviet squad. Logically, Lake Placid would be a repeat.
Many interpret the victory in a negative, jingoistic way. Through most of the Seventies, the nation felt pretty bad and 1979 had been an awful year to finish out the decade filled with inflation, violence and a loss of American prestige courtesy of Vietnam and Iran. Beating the Soviets at hockey, the sport they had won four Olympics in a row would “show them,” especially with their invasion of Afghanistan. Sports don’t determine which socio-political-economic system is superior and shouldn’t an extension of such chest thumping. I do agree that the Soviet Bloc nations were cheating by bending the definition of amateur athlete but Herb showed Western skeptics how to solve this; find the flaws in their strategies, exploit them and use it to win. Therefore, Team USA winning was the last big victory of the underdog. A younger team with heart, soul, spirit, tears, guts and moxie beating a machine by working together instead using NHL mercenaries. In defense of the Russian players and coaches, despite the cheating allegations, their style, techniques and innovations have contributed to making hockey a better game. It is too bad modern Russia is such a cesspool incapable of cultivating more Tretiaks, Ovechkins and “Vishys.”
Sadly, I didn’t see the legendary game. It happened late on a Friday afternoon and for some reason I can never remember, my family went to JC Penney for something. When we arrived there was a commotion around the televisions. This created enough of uproar over the weekend that Brian and I bothered to watch most of the US v. Finland game the following Sunday. We had been watching the highlights of the Winter Games at night on ABC since the opening ceremonies but being kids, bobsledding and the luge held more of our interest; it resembled the fun we had taking our toboggan down the big hills at the municipal golf course near the house.
On to the Gold Medal! I think we have a chance but Sweden really has taken the Soviets’ place in ability.
I think she gave me the kiss off in an e-mail before my 40th birthday a couple years ago but I didn’t care. Sheila will always be my friend and the door will be open to her until one of us passes. Sounds rather gloomy yet I don’t feel that way. It’s an ember of fiery optimism. One day, she may have the time to catch up.
The bummer of it all is her location. After all these years, Sheila lives in Austin as I do; I figured she was still in San Francisco which was her favorite city. Maybe I’ll run into her, her husband and children at a Marquette thing because she was more “patriotic” than I ever was. (Trust me, nothing makes you a foe of your alma mater‘s team like living in the same dorm as those spoiled, low IQ assholes.)
So why didn’t I remember on the 17th? I did have the day off. Just the inertia of recuperating coupled with the “need” to empty our Netflix streaming queue preventing me from bothering…not any kind of payback. Sheila remains an important friend in my past which means I want to honor her birthday. She is also the only major friend from Marquette Somara has not met. Last year, it was the Silders in person and we’ve covered Nelson, Jose, Phil and Lee over the years. I think my wife needs to see the whole picture for Marquette first. Meanwhile, I’m juggling post-Marquette and pre-Marquette too.
If you know Sheila, wish her well for me. I may take a gamble on writing her an e-mail. Put the ideals of Ghandi and King to the test.
On a lighter note over the so-called news today, I tried to do a little pun based upon the famous Judy Garland movie.
So yesterday Somara received a phone call from Sam, our car salesman. He our customized Honda Fit was completed Tuesday in Japan. The next time we hear from him, our car will be in CA (Long Beach most likely).
I plan to mark the date as our new car’s birthday. It may be silly but I think we’re entitled to a little silliness because this is our first new car in 14 years.
Next update? Probably pictures of the car when we pick it up in Round Rock.
As the truth will gradually push out the rumor-mongering fueled by the Punditocracy, Internet and ravenous 24-hour Infotainment our civilization calls “the news,” Somara and I were already at work when this went down. I had a rough idea of something happening after the break room TV was changed to the continuous local news station run by Time Warner. We got more details by lunch.
However, I wasn’t really sweating it. The building the guy crashed into was a couple miles from Apple. Hell, I didn’t even know the IRS had anything in Austin beyond its humongous call/processing center down on the south side; everybody knows about their seasonal hiring too.
Yesterday’s cleaning and inspection was great. The worst ratings I had on my gums were fours. Last session in October had a couple of fives (the purple numbers). I had accrued some extra fours but I can live with them as long as I have eradicated the fives and sixes.
…still getting suckered into those rather obvious traps that even the eight-year-old audience members can see coming.
For years, the moniker “genius” is overused in the realm of popular music but Peter Gabriel rightfully belongs there on my short list. (You’ll have to bug me directly for the other nine.) While David Bowie is the grandfather of many bands I like that fall into the Alt-Rock label (Foo Fighters, Elefant, Peter Murphy and Maktub readily come to mind), Peter is the elder uncle whose contributions are more subtle, esoteric like when artists venture out into “international” territory, aka he and the Talking Heads making the world safe for Paul Simon to record Graceland to entertain the masses. Anyway, the only act I can think of which has his direct influence is Vampire Weekend. Given time, I could probably think of more.
I stumbled upon Peter Gabriel in eighth grade during my big musical awakening through Springfield’s FM Pop/Rock station WDBR. On a Sunday afternoon, one DJ decided to play the first single from Peter Gabriel’s third solo album, “Games Without Frontiers.” I guess he took the gamble because Abacab by Genesis was very popular then and he introduced the track by mentioning Gabriel’s past association with Genesis. Obviously, being 13, my first thoughts were, “Genesis had another singer before Phil Collins and albums before Duke?”
Fast forward about a year to the days of when we lived in Houston and MTV’s influence was the on the rise. My education on all things Genesis and Peter Gabriel grew through KLOL: songs such as “Solsbury Hill,” and “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.” Peter’s affinity for visuals made him a perfect fit on MTV with his video “Shock the Monkey,” this little Action-Sci Fi movie of twins with a psychic link is my interpretation. However, the song is really about jealousy. Sadly, I didn’t get the opportunity to see him in Houston when he came through for the Security tour. My friend Steve did see this show in Normal, IL and confirmed the stories of him crowd surfing to “I Have the Touch.” Maybe he’ll chime in tell us all about it.
After 1986, everybody knows his story.
My other friend Jose saw his Us tour in the early Nineties when it swung through Orlando. I was impressed with Jose’s descriptions of the show’s opening and closing; again, maybe this friend will also post to share his experience with us. Side note of trivia. The woman touring then as his backup singer was Paula Cole years before she had her hit “I Don’t Want to Wait.” Don’t hold it against her, Paula’s first solo album was much better with “I am so Ordinary” and “Saturn Girl.”
Much like many people, I used to feel that the naming of his first three or four (depends upon the country) solo albums just Peter Gabriel to be a cross between laziness and vanity. It was confusing. Many artists only do this with their debut, then have titles for every successive record (Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and Duran Duran), why is he so special? Then I read an interview with him in Spin where he explained it. Peter’s plan was to make his albums akin to a magazine; you go into the record store in 1980 and think, hey, what’s up with the latest “issue” of Peter Gabriel? Geffen Records (his American label in 1982) didn’t agree, therefore it put the title Security on the fourth album against his wishes. Afterwards, he has been a smartass by choosing two-letter words for titles: So, Us and Up.
This upcoming Tuesday will be his first new record in eight years. A rather cool thing to do while turning 60. Despite how disappointing I found his last one Up to be, I was willing to cut him some major slack. Peter has been busy supporting other artists he likes, finding a long-term solution to making a digital music label viable, being involved with causes important to him and occasionally doing a single. The one at the end of WALL-E was marvelous and a Vampire Weekend cover (“Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”) with Hot Chip backing him; they mentioned him in is this single so he returned the favor.
Then I read about this upcoming album being a covers collection. I immediately reacted with “Ugh! Yet another one of these?” Way too many are made today and the novelty died off a while ago. I don’t even listen to the podcast Coverville anymore because it grew tiresome.
Leave it to him to turn this on its side, make it interesting and slip in some humor. The title alone says it all, Scratch My Back which will contain 12 songs by his contemporaries (Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Randy Newman and David Byrne/Talking Heads) and newer acts he likes (Regina Spektor, Elbow and Magnetic Fields). In return, they will appear on the companion album I’ll Scratch Yours performing his songs. Vain? No way! It’s absolutely genius! My only regret is the lack of Kate Bush who has sung memorable parts for him on “Don’t Give Up,” “No Self Control” and the one which started it all, “Games without Frontiers.” Side note number two, Kate is singing in French, “jeux sans frontiere,” not “she’s so functional,” as most people sing when they hear this. Others on the wish list? Andy Partridge (XTC) Neil Finn (Split Enz/Crowded House) and (no joke) Prince (former bandmates Wendy & Lisa introduced the Purple One to Security).
