Happy MLK Day


As you know if you’ve ever seen any of our advertisements featuring attractive people of color dancing in silhouette or the ones with Miles Davis and Jackie Robinson, diversity is hugely important to us at Apple. So we’re really excited about the MLK Day holiday. It’s one of the biggest days of the year for us. To kick off the celebration, on Friday afternoon Katie gathered together all of our African-American employees for a big group photo (above) and a small party afterward with a special cake and some soft drinks. Janelle Post and Dave Roberts are two of our most valued employees, and I’m proud to say that having them on board puts us at the very top end of the curve among Silicon Valley companies when it comes to hiring African-Americans.

I know Janelle and Dave were kind of disappointed that I couldn’t attend the party in person but it was Friday afternoon and I’d been at an off-site and I was just thinking about what the traffic was going to look like later in the day and I knew if I came all the way back to Cupertino it was going to take me two hours to get home and I just thought, You know what? They’ll understand. And I’m sure they did, because actions speak louder than words and frankly I think Apple’s commitment to diversity speaks for itself. Despite what you might have heard from people like Jesse Jackson, we’re a leading employer of African-Americans in the Valley and we totally value the MLK Day holiday.

Speaking of which, it’s true that we officially call tomorrow a day off, but whether you actually take the day off is totally up to you. I say that because I know so many Apple employees really put a huge emphasis on their work and really want to see Apple succeed and because of that they don’t like to take time off. So if you do want to come in, that’s fine. I know that I for one will totally be in the office because I just can’t ever afford to miss a day. However if you’re not one of those people who really cares about Apple, and you want to just stay home and do nothing even though you’re totally not even African-American, that’s totally cool too. You’re free to stay home. We’ll be keeping track of which people badge in, just for our own records. Peace out and enjoy the holiday.

CORRECTION: Dear Leader made a mistake in the above item. Turns out we do NOT give anyone MLK Day as a holiday. The holiday was given up so that people could have a week off between Christmas and New Year’s. I know what you’re thinking: Wasn’t that Christmas holiday a reward for all the hard work last year? Isn’t it kind of crappy to make people give up future holidays in exchange for a Christmas break? Um, all I can say on that is obviously you don’t work at Apple. Now back to work, idiots.