Apple's Hr Department

m in 1998, and I left the company in 2007. As much as I loved working at Apple, by 2007 I determined that I now had the financial freedom and opportunity to leave the company and begin working on my own projects.

That was because Apple had been very good to me via the stock market. In the time I worked there, the stock price had gone from less than $10 per share (adjusted for splits) in 1998, to $100-plus per share when I left in 2007 -- and it now hovers around $300 per share. And since I still own shares that I bought for less than $10 per share, my investments in Apple have paid off handsomely.

A culture of fandom

At Apple, it's never, "How long did you work for the company?" but rather, "How many times did you work at Apple?" The Apple attitude seems to infect everyone who works closely with the technology -- and, even after leaving the company, we all say that we still "bleed six colors," in reference to the original six-color Apple logo.

While at Apple, I, like many other employees, moved between several different divisions and jobs. I started at the company as a software engineer in the WebObjects (Web application) consulting division. I then became an inbound marketer for their K-12 school division, where we sold a suite of hardware, called the Apple Learning Hub, to school districts as part of the company's one-to-one initiative to provide one laptop to each student in a district.

I last worked as an engineer at the Apple Online Store -- which was, by far, the most important experience of my time at Apple, since the online store was earning millions of dollars in revenue every day. We would take the store offline before Steve Jobs took the stage to give a keynote speech and update the database with the new products he was introducing. It was always a great learning experience to bring the store back online under the onslaught of Apple fans checking out the new products.

A great working environment

Apple's HR department takes good care of its employees. In my eight years at the company I never once had, or heard of anyone having, pay issues or other administration problems. Working at Apple was mostly a positive experience, with just a few less-than-ideal elements to the job. Here are some highlights:

Can We Talk: At Apple, you could raise issues that weren't appropriate to bring up with your manager to a higher level by posting it to the Can We Talk section of the internal HR website. For example, in spring 2001, the Apple federal office in Reston, Va., was remodeled to look more like the main campus in Cupertino, Calif. The architect in charge of the remodel removed the large American flag hanging on the lobby wall, since it didn't fit into Apple's design. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Apple promoted a video on their HR website as they unrolled a huge American flag at 1 Infinite Loop. A quick post to the Can We Talk section pointing out the irony immediately fixed the problem, and the American flag was replaced in the Reston office lobby.

Health insurance: The