A photo of Sam Sung’s Apple business card went viral on Reddit, causing panic and temporary removal from the shop floor.
Struan left Apple in 2013 and auctioned memorabilia for charity, raising over $2,500 for Children’s Wish.
To avoid online jokes and professional challenges, he adopted the surname Struan, inspired by a village on Scotland’s Isle of Skye.
A viral internet moment more than a decade ago impacted the career path of Sam Struan, a 36-year-old consultant and resume writer from Scotland. Struan, who used his birth name Sam Sung while working at an Apple store in Vancouver, became an unwitting internet sensation after a photo of his Apple business card went viral.
SurveyIt began in his early 20s, when he relocated from Glasgow to Canada for a new job at Apple. While in Glasgow, jokes about his name were light-hearted, but when he moved to Vancouver, things quickly became heated. “I was working another part-time job when my phone began to blow up. I thought something terrible had happened,” Struan told Business Insider. He soon discovered that someone had shared his Apple business card online, which went viral on Reddit.
Strutan, as per Business Insider, stated that the viral post caused him to panic. He was recently relocated and was so early in his career that he feared losing his job due to his name. Apple responded by temporarily removing him from the shop floor and limiting access to his business cards, while coworkers were told not to identify him to visitors. Despite the uproar, Struan stated that the incident lasted only a few months before fading from public view.
Struan left Apple in 2013 to start a career in recruitment. The following year, he auctioned one of his Apple business cards and pieces of his uniform for charity, raising more than $2,500 for Children’s Wish. “It felt good to turn a personally terrifying moment into something positive,” he told me.
Struan chose a new surname inspired by a village on Scotland’s Isle of Skye to avoid being remembered as an internet joke and to address the challenges his surname posed professionally. He now goes by Sam Struan, but some of his friends and family continue to use his birth name.
Follow Us
Ashish Singh
Ashish Singh is the Chief Copy Editor at Digit. He's been wrangling tech jargon since 2020 (Times Internet, Jagran English '22). When not policing commas, he's likely fueling his gadget habit with coffee, strategising his next virtual race, or plotting a road trip to test the latest in-car tech. He speaks fluent Geek. View Full Profile
