Ex-Apple employee reveals how his name Sam Sung nearly cost him his job

Courtesy: Business Insider

More than ten years ago, a young Apple store employee named Sam Sung accidentally became the internet’s favorite irony. His name, so similar to Samsung, Apple’s biggest competitor, went viral in 2012 after someone posted a photo of his Apple business card online. Now, Sung has revealed that what looked like a harmless internet joke once made him fear for his job.

In a recent chat with Business Insider, Sung shared how the sudden attention turned his work life upside down. One moment, he was helping customers at an Apple Store. The next, his phone was buzzing with messages and reporters were turning up at the store. “I was terrified,” he said. “All I wanted was to stay invisible and keep my job.”

Apple’s management quickly stepped in. Sung was taken off the store floor, and his colleagues were instructed not to identify him to anyone asking about the viral “Sam Sung.” His business cards were withdrawn, and for a while, he even pretended to be someone else when customers came in looking for him.

By 2013, Sung decided to leave Apple, hoping to put the strange episode behind him. The following year, he turned the moment into something positive — auctioning off his old business cards and uniform to raise money for charity.

Still, the incident lingered in his life longer than he’d expected. To distance himself from the unwanted fame, he eventually changed his last name to Struan, inspired by a place he loves in Scotland. “I just didn’t want to be remembered as an internet joke,” he said.

Reflecting on it now, Struan admits he might have handled things differently. “If I could talk to my younger self, I’d tell him to laugh it off,” he said. “It was funny — I just couldn’t see it then.”