The Apple Job

Chapter 4 Things Start Warming up

That night Santos group messaged us saying that we had passed the second challenge leaving only sixty groups still in the internship. It wasn't until the following week when Jake managed to hunt down Laura once again. He hadn't really seen her that much lately and wanted to try his luck once again. Jake followed Laura to the sound proof sleeping office where staff go to have a rest while on campus. You got to lay on a very comfortable lounger bed, slightly like one you would sit on a dentist but much more comfy. You would then layback into a little pod which surrounds your top half of your body so that you could sleep without feeling like people are watching you. You could also use the headphones and listen to some quiet music as you sleep. Just before Laura went inside Jake called for her. "Hey thanks for sending me to those classes, after my first one with Harry I didn't expect you to send me a few extra classes on the Apple app. Those were very helpful". "Really?" She asked seeming surprised that he actually went to them. "I see you clearly want to go and have a sleep but just before you go inside I want to ask you something. If I wanted to ask someone out for a bite to eat around here off campus where would I go?". "Erm I don't actually know if I'm honest I don't really get off campus that much. When I do get off I tend to just go back home to spend time with family and friends" she told me. "Seriously?". "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that I work hard for a reason? Whether you think it's silly or not I actually think that this company helps makes people lives easier. I'm not saying were a perfect company I know apple has issues, most of them are above my ability to do anything about them or even get a say you literally have to be like at the top for most of them. I may be high up but I work hard so I can change things". "I think that's amazing, I think that it's also inspiring but I'm just saying that you need to have some fun or at least time to relax and not think about work at all. I bet when you go into the sleep room that your still going to be thinking about work aren't you". Laura smiled and replied, "I know where your going with this. I'm the boring young girl who started working here when she was sixteen and is now twenty one and wishes that she had gone out and had fun with her friends and partied like a normal girl but I didn't alright. So is that anything close to what you was going to say". "Nope I was going to say to you that your inspiring to me. However if anything what you just said even remotely relates to you then you should do something about it. So I want to set you a personal challenge to go out to dinner with a boy before I leave the interview whether that's at the end of August or at the next challenge". "I'll let you know if anyone asks". "Great and if anyone does don't just say no because they might not be super hot just say yes and give someone a chance because they may surprise you, I mean I'm no sportsman with big muscles but I can make a girl have a good time" Jake told her as she smiled and walked inside the room.
Meanwhile Alisha and myself were sitting at the food court eating a rice pudding when Matthew walked past us. "Hey that was a good few games we played last week wasn't it Matthew" Alisha called. "It was a pretty basic game of throwing a ball and as I recall you lost one of your games" he told us. "Hey we won two and the last one we really did well in the second half, despite the cheating on the other team which you saw by the way" Alisha told him. "You still lost the game Alisha the referee did not see what happened". "Technically we won that game it was a morally right victory" I told him. "Well maybe you'll get yourself a morally right job Jake, enjoy your pudding" he replied and walked off. "Wow he really doesn't like our team does he" I told Alisha . "It doesn't seem that way".
July 18th was when our third challenge arrived and this one was going to last for three weeks. The challenge was to create an app. You would want to get your app out onto the App Store as soon as possible to start getting downloads because you'd want your app to be between 1st and 30th with the download score because if it didn't your group will be going home. So fifty percent of the groups are going home on August the 8th.
"I bet you guys we can have this challenge in the bag once we get an idea going" I said happily. "That's true, we all have some pretty decent knowledge on how to use computers and of course with all our classes some knowledge on how to make an app so we can do this" Ira explained. "What we should do is look up what app genres that get the most downloads" Ira told us. "Wouldn't it be social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat?" Alisha asked. "Maybe, maybe not we should check anyway and find out" Santos agreed. "We should then work out from the genres what we can offer the app such as it's functions and uses and work out what age category it would best suit" I told the group. "Excellent Jake you work with Ira then and draw up a diagram on the board we will have a brain storm together" Santos told me.
We literally spent the next three days together inside the office, the only time we left was to sleep and to go and get food to bring back to the office. However it was safe to say that we got a memory block. We categorised everything, put age groups to everything and put functions to everything but no ideas were coming together to turn into a app. Santos then had an idea, he told us we were working to hard and needed a break. So he told us all to go to our dorms and get ready into something nice and meet him by the doors of the dorms and we were getting in a mini bus and going into the town for a night out. This way we could have fun and possibly grain a bit of inspiration too.
We certainly was going to have a huge night as we went into a student club on student night. I had to sneak in with everyone as I wasn't actually allowed in as I wasn't eighteen. However I got in and it was my first time in a club, actually it was also Rochelle, Jake's and Dan's first time in a club. We all got to the bar and ordered thirty two shots so everyone had four each and we started to down them to get into the mood. After the shots we all started mingling and dancing around to club music. Alisha and Ira were right in the thick of the dance floor with about twenty boys eyeing them up and trying to dance with them. Rochelle and Dan stayed at the edge near the bar dancing away with each other. Jake, Santos and myself sat at the bar when Santos saw the girl from the Apple gym dancing near him. "Oh my god!" Jake said as he too saw her. "I didn't know she'd be here". "Talk to her! Talk to her now!" Jake ordered as he practically shoved Santos over to her. Santos then spoke loudly into her ear over the music, "hey". "Oh hello" she replied recognising him. "I didn't know you'd be here on a student night?". "Well I'm with some my friends who happen to be a little younger, why are you here?". "I am a team leader so my interns are here, so how about I buy you a drink?". She smiled and replied, "I'd love that".
Hours later into the night it was 4am and everyone was a bit tipsy but still having time of there lives. Alisha and Ira danced with many boys having fun on the dance floor. Rochelle was having fun with a boy dancing around and talking a little. Dan and Jake were each talking to a girl while I was talking to a boy. Santos was at the bar talking to Sabrina from the Apple gym until a guy came over, "hey baby want a dance" the fairly drunk man said to Sabrina. "Erm no thanks" she replied. "Look bitch I don't know who you think this guy is but I'm way better, especially in bed" he yelled angrily. "Yeah unlike you I'm not trying to get into her pants you drunken twat!" Santos told the man. "What did you say to me!" He yelled. Jake and Dan saw what was happening and decided to start making there way over to the Santos. "Oh and look he has to have help from his two children!" The man yelled. "Leave them alone!" Santos told the man getting annoyed. Rochelle then saw something strange going on and made her way over to me to tell me to go over while she tried to get Alisha and Ira to go over. I then came over standing behind Jake and Dan as the man laughed at me. "Look at this one he's got a third now". "Leave them alone or we will take this outside!" Santos threatened. "maybe I want to do it in here with my boys" the man told us as three men turned up behind him. Just as the man punched Santos a fight broke out. Santos punched the man back, Dan dived into one of the men as then Ira came over smacking one guy over the head with a glass and Alisha copied and did the same. Rochelle jumped on a guys back as Jake kicked him in the balls. I decided to help Alisha and Ira and jump one of guys back as Ira and Alisha begun punching him. We both fell down and security rushed over. Grabbing Santos, Dan, Jake the other men and the girls. A security guard actually picked me up off the ground and put me on his shoulder and carried me out as he shoved one man with his hand as I started to struggle trying to get out of the lift.
At 5am the sun was beginning to rise so Santos took us to a place that was fairly breath taking, he got us a taxi to a old building just outside of town. He walked us out to the rooftop through the back door which was broken down ages ago. We then looked out to see the city from the rooftop, the building was up in hills so it has an excellent view of the city lights sparkling around as the sun started to rise. "I think I'm going to text mum and tell here about my new guy in the club" I said as I stumbled forward and got out my phone, "no Jake you know you'd never tell your parents that!" Alisha told me about to take my phone off me. "No I want to say how hot we was!" I told her. "Don't you just hate that when you drunk text someone and it's really embarrassing" Ira told us. "Yeah that is the worst on a night out" Alisha told her. "That's it that's our app! We can make an app that you can switch on and it stops you from making any calls or texts, to switch it off you have to answer some kind of trivia question that only a sober person would know" Jake said looking happy. "Oh my god that's would be the best app ever invented that could save so many people's lives the following morning" Alisha said looking excited. "Can we make an app like that Santos?" Dan asked. "There's no rules to the app you create so yeah we can we could get it done in a couple of days and we'd be able to put it on the app store!" Santos told us.
After sobering up and catching up on a few hours sleep, our team hit the office and started to make the app. Everyone was in charge of something on the app, I was in charge of creating the app name and the app cover icon. Santos and Jake were in charge of making the app actually work and doing all the technical stuff for it, Alisha was in charge of writing up all the documents for the app for legal reasons and to know what to do for bugs and such. Rochelle and Dan were in charge of the design on the app once opened and Ira was in charge of de bugging the app before we put it on the App Store. In just three hard working days the app was ready to put on the App Store. We called it Safe Texts.
For the remaining two weeks we then returned to our classes and in our spare time promoted our app to the world on our social media apps.
On August 8th we were told by an email from Matthew that he wanted to see us in our office. Naturally we were all nervous, As he came in we looked a little nervous too as we thought he was coming to tell us we failed the challenge. "Well it seems that your app actually got more than ten times as many downloads than any other of the apps from the other groups. Congratulations you actually placed 1st in this challenge" he told us as we all jumped up and looked happy at each other hugging and high fiving. I couldn't believe we won out of sixty groups we actually got first place, I knew our app was a good idea but I never expected it to do so well!