Whenever I watch the iPhone keynote, I always wonder what happened to the Starbucks barista who was on the receiving end of the prank call Steve Jobs pulled off with the iPhone. It was a pretty significant event: the first ever public iPhone call, and it was also pretty funny.
Now though, Fast Company has investigated a little further and managed to get an interview with Hannah, the employee who picked up the phone. She still works in the same Starbucks six years on, which is equally impressive.
From Fast Company, as posted back in March:
Sincere and sweet, Hannah has been working at the same Starbucks for more than a half-decade. “Honestly, I was shocked,” she recalls. “I have never heard somebody order 4,000 lattes to go. I didn’t say anything because I was shocked. But my first impression was that he was just being humorous. He sounded like a gentleman.”
She first found out from customers making a pilgrimage to the location, and now feels a sense of pride that the Apple cofounder chose her store. “Customers would sometimes come up to me and go, ‘Did you know somebody at your store actually talked to Steve Jobs?’ I feel very happy and lucky that I had a chance to actually talk to him. It means a lot to me that he picked our Starbucks,” explains Hannah, wearing her green Starbucks apron. “My friends were surprised and jealous, like, ‘Wow, you got a chance to talk to Steve Jobs?’ They say to me, ‘You should’ve said more! You just say Good morning and How can I help you.'”
The Starbucks store has become a popular spot for Apple fans, and orders for 4,000 lattes are still received today, imitating Steve Jobs.
While 4,000 lattes is a nice idea, it would take 48 hours by Starbucks’s calculation to complete the order. So unless Jobs had a keynote marathon in mind, it would have been rather impractical.
