Michael Braun's Blog

My, my. I wrote yesterday about feeling like a bit of a sellout by working for Apple. I feel like I have to push products and that my integrity has been compromised by the fact that I am getting paid for this work. In the end, I feel like I am not helping anyone, but rather am just another in a string of salespeople, pushing my wares on others for my own personal gain.

As it turns out, Evan is feeling the same way. He said to me that we needed to get together and talk. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he told me later he had seriously been thinking about quitting and that was why he wanted to talk with me. I was surprised by this, a little, and told him that the same thought had been bouncing around in my head.

Let me lay out for you the situation. Bob, my boss, is an extremely interesting person. His attitude is largely, do whatever. I felt good about this for a while. That is until a little event called Union Bash came along. Bob blindly instructed Evan to take care of it. Evan put in a lot of work to make it happen, but they changed things around and we were late making it impossible to get in. That, combined with some less than helpful people scattered around campus that we tried to turn to, left us in a bit of a bind. We went to the event, hoping for some chance to be there, and were turned away. Looking past my own objections to asking if we could be there, we were treated very rudely by the Union.

After this, I was feeling somewhat confused about how I should go about my own duties – is it better to wait for permission, or to wait to be told no. I asked Bob this question and told him of how rudely we were treated. That was August 30, and he hasn’t e-mailed me back. Evan told me today that he feels Bob has been very cool to him since the event. I don’t know if these two things go together, but here is how I tie them together. Bob is a bad leader.

I first thought, when I started out, that Bob was a great leader – one who leads from behind. I expected to be set out into the world, able to try new things, take risks, take Apple where it has never been before, with a good, strong mentor at my back. I thought of Bob as someone I could depend on and look up to. But when the chips were down and I sought his advice, he had none to give. Similarily, after Evan and I went through some tough rejection by the Union, Bob was nowhere to support us. Evan needed some positive words from Bob, but he got none.

So where does this leave me? I would like Evan and I to be able to come to a concensus, but if his attitude is quitting, I can support him but I can’t join him. At this point in time, I am feeling frustrated, but my response to frustration is to work harder, not give up. And so in the efforts of working harder, I am going to try to find some things I can do for Apple that also help the campus. Most of the things so far have not been that way.

Tonight, I spent an hour talking with my mom and an hour talking with my dad. I always talk to my dad Wednesday nights and it so happened that my mom called me. My dad was telling me a lot of anecdotes about what he knew about career salespeople. The general theme that emerged was that it takes A LOT of time to build successful relationships, and these relationships are vital to drive sales. But I’m just a marketing guy who feels trapped into sales. Bob is the sales guy. Shouldn’t he be taking the time to develop these relationships? These are the kinds of questions I am trying to answer.

In the business world, everyone tries to work together in order to get ahead themselves. So if I tell someone buying Apple will help them get ahead, they do it. It helps them and it helps me. In a University, people either want the most for their money or want something that will help them make more money. Giving me a place to show my wares doesn’t help with any of that. I think my position is a bit of a misfit at this institution.