Tag: technology

Why I Left Apple Two Years Ago

A couple of nights ago I had a dream about working in Apple Retail again. It was a good time in my life. I enjoyed it, made great friends, and it was the start of my tech career. Yet the dream was horrendous. I was back at the same place I started in 2007, and none of the years between really mattered.

Dreams can help us process things we’re holding on to. They can let us know where our pain is, where we need to let go, and where we need to heal.

The last two days reflecting on the dream, I realized my fear related to it was that I haven’t moved on. I haven’t grown. I haven’t lived and experienced anything of value since my time in Retail.

Then I realized that’s the way the last HR Director at Apple made me feel before I quit. In our last conversation, following months of discussions about concerns I had, he diminished my years of work helping build Apple’s infrastructure and services. He made me feel like I wasn’t part of the culture I helped build. He made me feel like I didn’t belong in a place I had worked hard to be in, growing into with skills, knowledge, and experience. He made me feel like, in his words, I was “back in Retail”, as if it were an insult I was ever there.

I’ve been angry with him, but more angry with myself for letting it happen. It’s easy to say you shouldn’t let yourself be influenced by others, or let the words people say hurt you, especially enough to change your life. Yet, what he said that day hurt, because it touched vulnerabilities I had carried for years despite my incredible career, success, and professional growth.

Then I left.

He didn’t make that decision for me. I did. I could have stayed. I could have escalated. I possibly could have fought and sued. I could have sit down, shut up, and kept cashing the checks. Instead, I quit and went elsewhere, leaving behind the work I had done, the team I had built, and people I enjoyed working with (most of them, anyway).

Being honest with myself about this, and forgiving myself for it, is the hard part that has taken time to reach.

The flip side is I needed personal growth. I needed to explore emotions, art, poetry, spirituality, and creativity. I also needed therapy. I needed to heal from long experienced PTSD. I needed to be diagnosed with ADHD and unpack it. I needed to work in a more positive culture and on a different team. None of this happened the twelve years I was at Apple, and there are few signs it would have if I had stayed.

Finally, I needed to take some intentional time off, which I was able to begin three months ago. That time off is how I got to today, where I can sit, write this, and be honest with myself and you about what happened.

I’m sorry to the team and people I left at Apple unexpectedly, and without any guidance about the problems I had navigated there before leaving. I’m sorry most to myself for not taking the time during my career to explore and address the issues I had, so my personal growth could match my professional life.

As for the HR Director, whether he’s current or former, I have mixed feelings about him. I hope he has never said anything to others like what he said to me, even though leaving Apple has worked out for me. Those at Apple who come from Retail do not deserve to be treated like a different class, or unworthy of being in roles they’ve earned, especially since demographics from Retail also intersect with greater diversity, culture, and economic backgrounds. There’s an issue there, not just with him, and I hope Apple works to address it.

I have more time off ahead. I’m writing a book, along with a few other personal projects. I’m relocating. I’m enjoying art, poetry, people, and places. I’m also figuring out what a return to work will look like. I don’t think it will be like before. It may not even be in tech.

Whatever it is, it will be something I can put my heart, spirit, and mind into, and magical things happen when those are in alignment.

The First Signs of my life at Apple

As I approach my 10th chronological and official year with Apple (Sept 2017 and Feb 2018, respectively), I am looking back at what led me here and what the road has been. This is the first post about some of my experiences on this path leading up to next February, when I hope and plan to celebrate that 10th official year. I never take the next day at work or in life for granted, but I’m excited about the next few months.

Identifying a problem

August 8, 2005, I wrote:

Mom had bought a new Dell computer, and despite my warnings, actually paid them $100 for home installation. She said the guy wasn’t there long, and after he left, the sound still wasn’t working. I took me about 20 minutes to fix what he didn’t do right (the sound and he even used the wrong I/O monitor connections), and then spent the rest of the evening installing necessary programs and getting her Outlook set up. It almost disgusts me that so much work has to be put into a new computer to get it up and ready for the individual person. I’m about to go to a CompUSA, so I think I may go by and check out the Macs.

Discovering an old archive

I recently downloaded and logged into SpiderOak, an encrypted backup service I trialed many years ago, to give it an updated look. I thought everything had been deleted from the service when I stopped using it, but I was surprised to see it had about 3GB of data in use. I found the 3GB in the trash file, and the data was recoverable!

I was impressed the service had kept 3GB of data for years in a Trash bin without so much as a login on my part. I downloaded the data to find it was an old version of my Documents folder, complete with a backup archive of my old blog. It has posts from May 2005 through January 2006, covering the separation from my first marriage and subsequent decision to leave law enforcement and my hometown!

Perusing an old blog archive

I spent time today reading through the posts. It has been almost twelve years since that place and time. In my writing I see the sparks of the person I was to become. Early signs of the growth I was to experience in leaving my first career and hometown in search of something different.

In twelve years, I have changed religious beliefs and political parties. I have lived in four different states, including moving across the country to the west coast. I have remarried and had a son with my second wife. I have had a life-altering surgery to correct a heart condition which had not been properly diagnosed at the time. I have built a second career in Information Technology, and I have worked for [what I believe is] the best computer and personal device company in the world for almost the last ten years.

Many things have changed since I was the person writing that blog. Yet, among the differences, I see the foundations which would become the life altering events the last twelve years.

Getting a solution

Before I was in tech, I was a cop. My interest in tech blossomed during that time, and I began learning what I consider now to be the basics. By the time I had written the quote above, I had become the “tech guy” in my family and occasionally at work. 

When I wrote the first quote, I was outlining a problem. I didn’t know that problem would lead me to recommend an iPod to my stepfather early the next year.

January 30, 2006:

Ok, something has been on my mind since my trip to Charlotte last weekend. I set up my stepfather’s new iPod Shuffle 1 gig, basically from scratch. This included downloading and installing iTunes, ripping about 15 of his favorite cds to the computer, and adding them all to the new shuffle. Having not used iTunes since version 1, I figured it would take me a bit to figure it all out and that it would involve reading instructions, directions, or maybe even a call to tech support (those of you that know me KNOW it is an absolute last resort). I was wrong, and that is my problem. It was all so simple and easy to learn. The interface was so intuitive and user friendly. My beloved podcasts are integrated into the program, without a need for a separate program like iPodder that I use with Windows Media Player 10. Transferring files to the new iPod was fast and simple, unlike the complex world of syncing with WMP. Somewhere in the simplicity, I was hooked. I thought of the ease of conversion of my current music library from the unprotected WMA I use now to the AAC format of iTunes. I even came to accept that the files that did not transfer well could easily be purchased through iTunes, having never given myself over to the confusing cacophony of various music stores available through WMP (fear of obsolescence, I guess). Having received an offer from a coworker just last week to purchase my current RCA Lyra, I have found myself perusing the Apple store online, searching and deciding whether to jump on the iPod bandwagon.

I didn’t know that recommendation would lead me to buy one myself, or that it would lead me into an Apple store. I couldn’t have imagined those early trips to an Apple store would influence me to apply to work at one in 2007.

Ending up on the right path

I’ve been asked many times why I left law enforcement and how I ended up in tech. The months of the archive I read today cover the answer I’ve always given: I had a choice between staying where I was and looking for something different. I took the bold choice, the one of a dreamer, the one that didn’t make sense, and it eventually worked out. It wasn’t all roses. It was far from it. Tech wasn’t the first career I tried. Apple wasn’t my first employer.

Before that decision, I was never the risk taker. Making that decision was the single pivotal choice between the life I knew before and the life I have now. It was the first decision that challenged me to think differently than before.

Data Privacy Day 2017

My Basic Privacy Link List

I am not a digital privacy expert. I like to think I’m knowledgeable and aware, especially given the kind of work I do, but keeping up with digital privacy is a full time job, sometimes more. I rely on help.

Here are a few of the resources I use to keep up to date on data privacy issues. They’re not in any particular order, but all are useful. All link to more specific tools and resources. I am not going to endorse any specifically, but there is enough below to get started with your own research.