Wednesday, June 29, 2005

She's not doing us any favors

Working w/Apple computers isn't "a handicap", dammit!

Today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran an article about Hawaii residents who responded to their "Help Wanted" series. The few stories they printed were all from people who said that, despite Hawaii's low 2.7% unemployment rate, they were unable to find suitable jobs.

I feel for these people, and I know what I'm going to say will come off as snotty, so I apologize in advance. But those who know me know how passionate and loyal I am to Apple, and would never view using it as a "handicap", as the writer, Stewart Yerton, put it. On the contrary, it's a beautiful advantage.

The woman pictured below (shame on Craig Kodama Kojma, the photographer, for even having her pose like that!) can't find employment after leaving the work force 17 years ago to raise a family. She says she has significant clerical and administrative skills, but "as soon as she tells potential employers that she has always used Apple computers, they 'shut down and won't give me the time of day'."

She continued, "A lot of them seem to have the attitude that it's totally different, and just because I have Mac, I'm incapable of using PC."

She says she's gone repeatedly to temp and employment services, with the same results.

c_kadena

So WHY, for gawd's sake, does she keep telling them the same thing? She's the one leading them to believe that she's "incapable of using PC".

I use Macs at home and at work. Our school is filled with PCs. I have to support teachers and instruct students using Windows, but the computers I personally use at school to create our website, parent newsletters, lessons and everything else, are Macs running OS X (of course). Windows is not hard to learn at all, just lamer. Ms. Kadena should take the brief time required to familiarize herself with it, and stop telling prospective employers that she "has always worked on Apple computers". Knowing that she keeps telling them that makes me think that there may be some other handicap involved. <-- that was the snotty part, I know. Sorry.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's Craig Kojima. ;)

HissyFitz said...

anon: Woops! Thanks, it's been corrected.

hof: True, I was thinking maybe she didn't really want to get back in the workforce as much as she might've believed. I'm also wondering how much of the article was taken out of context because it really does cast Apple and her in a non-favorable light.