Goodbye Steve Jobs

[firecat]

I was a Mac fan from the very beginning and got my first Mac in the winter of 1984. I got a job at Apple in 1988, during the Sculley years, and moved out to California. I worked for Apple full-time, then as a contractor, then part-time until shortly after the introduction of the iMac. I overlapped with Jobs for only a few years and never met him. But Apple and Jobs have been very important in my life, and somehow the world seems different when I think that he's no longer alive.

http://xkcd.com/961/

Comments

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

All day, I've been feeling like the world is different today. And I've never owned anything made by Apple. But still.

[bunnybutt.livejournal.com]

?? I did not know you were an apple alumna. What group were you in?

I was there for the Spindler/Amelio/Steve Returns years, doing connectivity testing and ISO 9000 implementation.

[firecat]

I wrote and edited end-user documentation (print and online). The group was called "Customer Communications" for a while. I think it might have had a different name during the years you were there, but I can't remember.

Working on documentation meant I touched a lot of projects. I have a half-made Apple T-shirts quilt languishing in my craft room...

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

I worked for Apple for 15 years, both in-house and as a contractor. I never met Jobs either, but I remember the impact his Macintosh group had on my own group -- and we weren't even in the same building. I thought he was handsome. I remember the stories about what a jerk he was. I remember when he was forced out of the company, and what I heard about how cruelly it was done.

By the time he returned to Apple, I was long gone. It's been a long time since I was involved with the company. But as you say, Apple -- and Jobs's vision -- have been important in my life too.

the world seems different when I think that he's no longer alive.

I feel the same way.

[firecat]

Part of my employee orientation kit was a copy of John Sculley's book Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple.

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

They didn't give me one! I'm pretty sure I started at Apple before Sculley came on board. That was in April 1983 according to Wikipedia.

[firecat]

That was probably wise. I suspect that the pre-Sculley employees would have considered it an insult.

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

Heh -- yeah.

I'm pretty sure I started in 1982. No Sculley in sight, and our group was "Apple II Forever!" even though Jobs and his team were working 80-hour weeks on the Macintosh. We even had an "Apple II Forever" employee event at De Anza (?) College amphitheater with buttons, T-shirts, balloons, and a zeppelin floating over the crowd we were all packed inside. But that was after we moved to Cupertino. When I first started, my group was in the Triangle Building further south, and I think Jobs and his group were already in Cupertino.

[firecat]

A zeppelin!

I didn't even know Apple was ever anywhere other than Cupertino (well, except for the garage).

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

Not a full-sized zeppelin, mind you, but it made an impression.

I looked up the Triangle Building.It's in San Jose. We were all so happy when we moved to Cupertino -- the area around the Triangle Building, in those days, was a wasteland, although there was a surprisingly good Thai restaurant inside a nearby bowling alley. Go figure. I remember eating lunch there with Jody.
http://wikimapia.org/18574/The-Triangle-Building-Campus