Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

My Love Letter To Steve Jobs

It was 1993. I was working for a bank, in collections. Not a job that I enjoyed, but it paid the bills. After the passing of my father, I could no longer afford to attend college and had to drop out. Here I was, in a job that I didn't like, and no real prospects. I had no clue as to what I was going to do with my life, but I knew it wasn't going to be collections. (See reasoning in the third paragraph)

 

During my tenure at said job, my boyfriend at the time had a PC. I would play around on it, and watch him do things, but it never really inspired me. One day, on a complete whim, I said, "let's go to Sears. I am buying a Macintosh computer. " So I whipped out that Sears card, and charged a Performa 638. At that time- Sears had an Apple section, and the Performa's were a bundle. You got the computer, a monitor, a keyboard and mouse, all in one HUGE box. I think I paid around $2500 for the set up, plus $525 for the first Epson Stylus color inkjet printer. I seem to recall that we had a hard time getting all of my new and exciting swag into the car. 

 

About a year later, I had had enough of collections. It took a great toll on my mental health. I just don't have the ability to shrug things like that off. I quit my job, and was unemployed for about a year. I still had some leftover money from a life insurance policy that my Dad had taken out, so I was able to get by. During this time, I would stay up for 16 hour stretches completely immersed in my Mac. I took it apart, put it back together, did design work, crashed the thing too many times to count, and basically became an expert. I was so good at everything Mac that when I would call Apple about issues, I could stump them (all the way up to engineering support) to the point where they would say- "we are sending a technician out." I don't even want to detail the problems of the Performa series. Suffice to say they were numerous, and I'm sure that was the busiest era for Mac support. 

 

At some point in time, I had to start working again. I knew Quark and applied at a free newspaper in our area called The Bargaineer. I landed the job, and spent my days doing page layout and design. Wow. How antiquated it all was back then! But, I was working on a Mac, and doing something that interested me. The low pay and long hours did finally get to me, and I found myself looking for work again. 

 

While out at a local watering hole one night, I met my now dear friend Jeff. He happened to work for a small ISP doing Windows support. We chatted for most of the night. In those days, it was pretty rare to find a girl as computer savvy as I was. It was the beginning of the personal computer and internet boom. I'm sure you all remember the AOL discs coming hard and fast in the mail. Well, Jeff mentioned that the ISP he worked for had no one with any real Mac support experience. He asked if I would be interested, and gave me the phone number of the owners. 

 

I called the ISP within a few days, and they decided to take me on as a consultant before they hired me. Special mention to my friend Amanda here as well. She was a huge help to me at this time. There were quite a few days when her house was my headquarters, for various reasons. They sent me out not only to configure people's Macs for their service, but to troubleshoot as well. After a couple weeks of doing very good work, they hired me. 

 

I spent about three years there, excelling and doing something that I loved. As with all support jobs, we had quite a few funny moments. I created the new Mac installer CD's and mailed them out to our Mac clients. My best moment was trying to walk an older woman through the install on the phone, for about an hour. It just wasn't working. When I finally figured out that she was clicking on the PPP control panel in the documentation, that was it. I had to put her on mute while I laughed. I know, I know, I'm mean. But anyone who has worked in technical support knows that you need those laughs. 

 

That ISP was my launching pad. I later got another job, that paid a bit better, but I'll skip over that one. That leads me to where I am today. 

 

My long winded point is this- without Apple Computer, which Steve Jobs built, I would not have a career. I would not have experienced some of the best moments of my life. People who know me know that I have been devoted and steadfast in my love of the company, and also of it's founder. I was there when it was doubtful that there would even BE an Apple Computer anymore. When Steve came back in 1997 I remember the sheer joy that anyone who loved their Mac had. It was a breath of fresh air. There was HOPE. Apple gave *me* hope when *I* had no hope for my future. 

 

This is my love letter to you, Steve. Thank you for changing my life.  I will be eternally grateful to you. You made a huge dent. ;-)