More tales from Bandley 3

Work-from-home has it's benefits, however mixing it up in the office is important, particularly when developing something new.
The spring of 1983 was stressful period for the Mac group, as the decision to build the factory in Fremont rather than Texas put a huge additional load on us.
Finding a building, purchasing the equipment and staffing all became -our- responsibility rather than that of the manufacturing division. So, lots of meetings.
One day in March this showed up in all our in baskets-

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Remember kids- no e-mail or text in those days, just phone and Xeroxed memos to pass info around. (yes, this is my original memo but since they were all copies the initials are not "real")
Not only were they no meeting days, but they quickly became let's hang out in the B3 inner lobby and have a beer or two afternoons. This invited some cross-pollinating among the staff which was actually quite productive.
Soon though it was decided we should have a bit of entertainment as well. Steve was hooked on the Windham Hill record label at the time, and one Friday he had scheduled Liz Story, one of their pianists, to come play for us. Oops, we needed a piano for the lobby.
IIRC, 2 days and over $30k later a shiny new Bosendorfer grand appeared, was tuned and ready. Wonder where it is now?
On another afternoon we were treated to a Q&A session on design by Maya Lin, the architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There were more that I don't recall now -it was a very busy time.
The comment in his memo that mentions jeans and t-shirts is a bit gratuitous, as that was pretty much all anyone ever wore to work.
 
Last time I was on the Infinite Loop campus, the Bosendorfer grand piano was tucked away in a room called the Piano Bar, directly across from Town Hall where media events used to take place.
 
I kinda rushed a bunch of pics as a lot of this stuff -might- be going to R&R auctions later this spring. Or not, though they gave me a crazy estimate for an SJ business card...
I'm getting older and my kids don't care.
 
Once Steve had won the battle over locating the Mac factory locally rather than in Dallas we found a suitable building in Fremont, CA.
120k sq ft. and brand new, so no interior obstacles to work around. As usual we needed to celebrate somehow.
He chartered a bus and we all took the 20 minute ride (much less traffic then) over for a look. On arriving we found lunch waiting for us -fully catered, white tablecloths, the whole bit. Some of the team had brought roller skates and had a blast skating all over that pristine concrete floor.
We were then each presented with an official Mac hardhat to kick off the construction.
I believe this may be one of the rarest early Mac collectables as there were only 80 ordered (I signed the purchase order). These are genuine Fibremetal brand, not some toy -typical of Jobs.
 

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