When His Project Was Terminated, Former Apple Programmer Kept Going To Work

Nobody likes to lose a job. Still, it happens to most of us over the course of a career. However, while most of us would use the opportunity to look for a new job, a former Apple programmer did something completely different, according to World’s Strangest. In 1993, Ron Avitzur, along with the rest of his team at Apple, was working on a graphing calculator program for a new PowerPC, which was set to arrive in 1994. Before the program was done, however, Apple killed it and offered each freelance programmer a new project. Avitzur, however, refused to be reassigned. Instead, he decided to complete the project, even though he no longer had a contract to do so.

Just submit your final invoice for what’s left,” she told him. That’s when it clicked: If Avitzur didn’t submit the invoice, his contract stayed in the system. And if his contract stayed in the system, his ID badge would keep getting him in the front door.

For three months, Avitzur returned to Apple’s new Infinity Loop campus to get the calculator done. Eventually, things got so bad, that Apple rescinded Avitzur's ID card.

That’s when the real sneaking around began. For the next two months, Avitzur had to find new ways of getting into the building. He kept his canceled badge around his neck and timed his arrival for when he knew there’d be crowds coming through the front door.

Three months later, Avitzur was able to demonstrate the calculator.

Avitzur was prepared for the worst—ready to be dismissed as a loose cannon who had spent the last three months trespassing—but the demo went perfectly. When the computer came out the next year, Avitzur and Robbins’s graphing calculator program was on it. It has been loaded on more than 20 million machines in the decades since.

Nearly 20 years later, Avitzur still designs software and lives in the Bay Area. How's that for dedication! Source: World’s Strangest