Apple Corp

5:00 a.m. at Apple headquarters. Top staff from the Apple Corporation arrive for early staff meeting. Among those present are Katherine Adams, Eddy Cue, Craig Federighi, John Giannandrea and other assorted senior VPs. They are surly about being woken up so early. Most sip DD coffee and wear Costco sweatpants. Tim Cook bursts through the door.

TC: (Settles in, folds hands in front of him dramatically, and glares at everyone assembled around the table). So, gang. How long? How long has it been?

Everyone shifts uncomfortably in their seats, each looking to the other for the answer.

KA: (Shuffles some papers) Fine. I’ll start. Four years.

TC: Four?

KA: Well, four going on five. Almost five. Nearly five. (Small sigh). Five.

TC: (Pauses in disbelief) Five years. Five. Years. What’s the client’s name?

Eddy: (Glances down at notes) Mary. Mary Oves.

TC: Mary Oves. (Gets up to walk around the conference table. Apple Heads squirm visibly). So what you’re telling me is that Mary Oves hasn’t had a phone upgrade in five years? She has been using the same iPhone for five years? Will someone please explain to me how this can be happening?

CF: Listen, Tim, she’s difficult. Ask anyone.

TC: I don’t want to ask anyone, Craig. That’s your job. What condition is the phone in?

CF: (Consults a small legal pad) Excellent condition. No cracks. Same rose gold phone case as when she bought it, with the same baby elephant sticker on the back. Rarely dropped, and even then only on soft carpet. She doesn’t risk taking it near water or sand, and keeps it charged. She takes care of it, Tim. Makes it tough.

TC: (Sits back down) What have we done to motivate her?

JG: I have that information here, Tim. Let’s see…(Consults his notes, realizes he is on wrong page, and flips around. Someone coughs uncomfortably).

TC:

JG: Ah, here it is. Well, we started by making sure her battery drained as quickly as possible.

TC: And?

JG: It had no effect. She is just not a hard user, Tim. Some music, a little Instagram, texts to her sons, a few pictures. That’s it. Then she charges it overnight. It’s working for her.

TC: Yeah. I know the type. (He shakes his head dejectedly) Then what?

JG: Same stuff we always try. Made her camera screw up some pictures. Made sure she couldn’t import pictures onto her laptop. Moved stuff to “Settings” so she couldn’t find it. Nothing phased her. We had to move on to more draconian measures.

TC: Such as?

Heads swivel to Katherine Adams.

KA: Well, we forced an update on her while she slept. I still say it was wrong to do that without her consent.

Eddy: Silence IS consent in this business! Listen, she won’t listen to reason! She had plenty of polite requests to do it during the day, but she refused. We told her we would give her the new update while she charged her phone, and damn if the bitch stopped charging her phone at night!

TC: (Shakes his head again) I don’t believe this. I don’t believe what I’m hearing in this room. Apple is a two billion-dollar company. We can’t be outsmarted by some smarmy little bitchy blogger in New Jersey.

KA: I hardly think the situation necessitates name-calling….

Eddy: Fuck you, Katherine. Typical woman, thinking with her vagina…

JG: Eddy, that was out of line, and I agree with Katherine. No reason to let the situation deteriorate….

TC: (Interrupts). So she got the update. What happened then?

CF: (Perks up) She was unhappy. Very unhappy. She hated the changes. We thought we had her. First we gave her phone a glitch when she used voice text. Our best day was when she was driving and we changed a voice text she sent to her new supervisor that went “Sorry, I am driving and on my way to Turnervsille to get my oil changed” to “Sorry, I am driving to tit-conscious to get my mulch embedded.” And to a new male boss! But…

TC: But?

CF: She laughed.

TC: Laughed?

JG: Laughed. The woman has a sick sense of humor. She’s sick, Tim. Sick.

TC: (Nods) Eddy?

Eddy: Yeah, that’s when I stepped in. Tim, I have tried everything. I deleted her favorite driving playlist. It’s gone. It took her three years to make that playlist. But after the shock wore off, she just didn’t care. Then I rearranged the icons on her screen. Nothing. Then I made sure that now if she wants to answer the phone in her car, she has to hit three buttons to answer it instead of just one. It’s dangerous.

TC: And?

Eddy: She just stopped answering the phone when she drives.

TC: Fuck.

Silence.

KA: Don’t worry Tim, we have a few things left we can do. We’re going to keep having her phone battery deplete earlier and earlier in the day. We’re going to hide her calculator and her clock, because she uses them a lot. If nothing else works, we have one final card to play.

CF: You don’t mean….

KA: Yes. We’re going to make sure Google maps doesn’t configure. The girl has no sense of direction, she uses Google maps for everything. If she doesn’t have Google maps, she can’t travel. She’ll have no choice. She’ll come running and screaming back to us, begging for an upgrade. (Looks at Eddy). How’s that for thinking with my vagina, Eddy?

Eddy: (Impressed and a little afraid of Katherine) Yeah, that’s good. That’s real good.

TC: Alright people, let’s wrap this up. You all know what is at stake. We can’t have this random woman making people think iPhones last for five years. If this gets out, our stock will plummet. I want Mary Oves with a new iPhone by 2021, do you understand? What’s the timetable to force her hand?

KA: We’re thinking right around the holidays, Tim. She’ll be getting ready to travel, and she’ll need her phone. The last upgrade we forced on her in 2016 was the day before spring break. We made sure her phone just DIED. She forked over the money for a new phone, a new case, a new charger, the whole shebang.

JG: (Smiles fondly) I remember that day. That was a good day. She was the perfect Apple client that day- furious, confused, desperate. She didn’t understand one thing the phone salesman said to her. Remember what she said that day, Craig?

CF: How can anyone forget that? I saved it in my notes. She said, and I quote: “Fuck it, I don’t care how much it costs, I’m in a rush, just charge my account and let me get out of here. This is bullshit.”

Everyone, Tim Cook included, smiles warmly.

TC: Yeah, those were the days. (He moves to leave). Let’s get Mary Oves back on track, people.

Eddy: Don’t you worry about it, Tim, we’ve got this handled.

TC: (Slams door behind him).

They all look at Katherine.

Eddy: Are you crazy? How do you expect to kill her Google maps, genius?

KA: (Stalks toward her office) Can someone please get Sundar on the phone for me?