Steve Jobs Briefly Speaks Out

Oh, Steve Jobs. I never know whether I should love you or loathe you. It's usually a little bit of both. And it doesn't really sway much in one direction or the other. There are equal amounts in each part of both love and hate that I feel for you. The email exchange that you had with a senior at Long Island University exemplifies these feelings, though I think I end up a little more on the love side this time.

According to the gawking folks over there at Gawker, a Long Island University senior, a one 22-year old Chelsea Kate Isaacs, had been given an assignment by her journalism professor to cover the university's plan to give all incoming students an iPad. She "...wanted to get a quote from Apple about the use of iPads in academic settings". That seems fairly reasonable. So she called Apple's PR department six times and left six messages and got zero responses. For some reason, that seems to have surprised her.

I don't know what Apple's reason for not returning her calls was, but I'm guessing it has something to do with them being fairly busy. Aside from that, I'm sure that she could scour the Innerwebs and find a quote from Apple about how wonderful they think their iPads are and how they will be immensely valuable in a scholastic setting. In fact, I'm positive she could find their take on it somewhere out there. If there's one thing that Apple can do well, it's speak highly of themselves.

Ms. Isaacs then decided that she would just email the man himself, so she sent an email off to Steve Jobs. Part of the email that she sent included the following sentence: "Mr. Jobs, I humbly ask why Apple is so wonderfully attentive to the needs of students, whether it be with the latest, greatest invention or the company's helpful customer service line, and yet, ironically, the Media Relations Department fails to answer any of my questions which are, as I have repeatedly told them, essential to my academic performance." Good God. And I thought that I was wordy.

That was one sentence. And really? She repeatedly told them that answering her question was "essential" to her academic performance? Not good. She's going to need to learn a little bit about how to phrase things when she's annoyed. What do they care if she gets a good grade or not? Does she have an iPod? That's good enough for them.

And it turns out, Steve Jobs didn't give a fat rat's ass about her grade. And he let her know it. In his reply, which was about one-tenth the length of the sentence above, he wrote, "Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry". Guess what? She didn't like that very much. I, on the other hand, liked it very much.

So, having not learned anything about brevity, she responded to Steve Jobs with: "I never said that your goal should be to "help me get a good grade." Rather, I politely asked why your media relations team does not respond to emails, which consequently, decreases my chances of getting a good grade. But, forget about my individual situation; what about common courtesy, in general —- if you get a message from a client or customer, as an employee, isn't it your job to return the call? That's what I always thought. But I guess that's not one of your goals." Wow. She's a talker, that one. Gotta mouth like a motorboat. But which one is it, cupcake? Emails or phone calls? Clearly, your emails are being responded to, by Steve Jobs no less!

And he continued to respond by explaining the realistic nature of the situation over there at Apple when he told her, "Nope. We have over 300 million users and we can't respond to their requests unless they involve a problem of some kind. Sorry." It's just not possible. The mathematics are not such that they can tend to every individual who wants a quote that they can find on the Internet. But do you think that was good enough for her? Hardly. So what do you think that she did? She wrote him another lengthy response, that is correct. She told him, "You're absolutely right, and I do meet your criteria for being a customer who deserves a response: 1. I AM one of your 300 million users. 2. I DO have a problem; I need answers that only Apple Media Relations can answer. Now, can they kindly respond to my request (my polite and friendly voice can be heard in the first 5 or 10 messages in their inbox). Please, I am on deadline." For cryin' out loud.

Perhaps he should have told this simpleton that when he says "a problem of some kind", he means a problem with a freaking Apple product. Not a problem in general. It's not a suicide hotline or anything like that. But she might want to find one after his final response to her. It was short. It was direct. It was kind of all sorts of awesome. It read: "Please leave us alone."

I don't think that this has anything to do with him being Steve Jobs and thinking that he's better than everyone else (regardless as to whether or not he really does think that, which I'm guessing that he does on occasion). I think it has to do with her not understanding how the real world works and how it's not something that a company with 300 million users can be bothered with. I can only imagine how self-important her voicemail messages that she left were. No wonder he asked her to leave them alone. Besides, what's she going to do? Buy a Zune?

If you'd like to read the initial email that Ms. Isaacs sent to Mr. Jobs, you can do so at the link that I provided to Gawker above. It's lengthy. It's self-important. It makes it clear that she has a deadline. And from how it reads, it seems to indicate she might want to spend just a little more time in those journalism classes. She gets a little muddled toward the end. Hey, I'm just saying! Look, I'm far from a professional journalist, but at least I don't expect the world to bow down to me because I possess fairly adept typing skills and an Internet connection.

I'd also like to mention how incredibly happy it made me to be able to write a post where I could use several "vintage" pictures of Mr. Jobs and of Apple products. It's awesome. It's really hard to squeeze things like that into posts about moronic politicians and stories about things going awry when they involve a penis.

Sphere: Related Content

Pedicures By The Pound

Here we have the case of a ridiculously overweight individual who is shocked, simply shocked, when they are treated differently than non-ridiculously overweight individuals. Now, the way that the woman was treated differently seems to be legit, but the way that it was carried out seems to be ridiculous. After all, can you really justify charging someone an extra five bucks for their pedicure because they might break the chair with their enormous arse?

I'm not so sure that you can, but that's what happened. According to WSBTV, a one Michelle Fonville had gone to Natural Nails on Covington Highway in DeKalb County (that's somewhere in Georgia) for a manicure, a pedicure and eyebrow arch. For those services, she was charged $29. Now, when I read the $29 part, I couldn't believe how cheap that was. She had her feet done, her nails done and her eyebrows arched for under thirty bucks? That's a deal in most places.

But at Natural Nails, it's usually even more of a deal, as they usually only charge $24. When Ms. Fonville realized that she had been overcharged by $5, she brought it to the attention of the salon manager, a one Kim Tran. And that's when she got the news that she was just too darned large. See, the justification for the extra $5 was that is was a surcharge that they had imposed "...due to costly repairs of broken chairs by overweight customers. She said the chairs have a weight capacity of 200 pounds and cost $2,500 to fix." Oh. Awkward.

Tran told the reporter from WSBTV "Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? Is that fair? No.” She forgot about the eyebrow arch. Oh, never mind. Sorry. I digress. Is that fair? Well, those are your prices, right? How DO those places stay in business anyway? I've never been able to figure that out.

Although Ms. Fonville claimed, “I was humiliated. I almost cried. Tears were forming in my eyes”, I'd like to point out that her humiliation did not stop her from running to her local news station and telling them of the tale. Nope. She didn't have any problem doing that. I'd also like to point out that she almost cried. Almost. That's not the same as crying.

Here's the part about this that I really like: "Tran said she refunded the $5 surcharge, and told Fonville to take her business elsewhere." Awesome. But naturally, that was not so awesome if you were asking Ms. Fonville because she said, “The word has to get out there that these people are discriminating against us because of our weight. I mean come on, we’re in America. You can’t do that." I'm not so sure.

I'm not so sure that this is discrimination. I'm not so sure that charging the $5 is such a good idea, but that doesn't necessarily make it discriminatory. If the manufacturer of the chair specifies that it cannot hold more than 200 pounds, then is the salon is technically being negligent if they let people who are clearly over 200 pounds use the chair? They might be. I can just see some obese asshat getting stuck in one of the chairs and the fire department has to come and Free Willy and then the salon ends up getting sued because they let them sit in a chair that wasn't meant to hold the girth of a tractor trailer. It's not like that's unheard of. If this was a case of what the manufacturer recommended, rather than charge the $5, shouldn't the salon just not cater to those over the weight limit? (Do they really need a pedicure? Can they even see their feet? Ohh. I didn't really write that, did I?)

So, I guess the salon should have a sign in the window informing people of larger carriage that they are going to be charged an extra $5? Or should they have something like one of those things at the airport where you check to see if your bag is too big to be a carry on? You know, like if the person can't fit comfortably between the width of some device, then they're too big for the chair? Or do they just eliminate service to the overly rotund all together? If they're only charging an extra $5 and a new chair is $2,500, they're going to need 500 behemoths that want pedicures. Do they have that large (pun totally intended) of clientele from that particular segment of society? Down in Georgia? I'm guessing they most certainly do.

I'm pretty sure that this isn't discriminatory. I think that the salon owner has a legitimate concern, but I don't think that charging an extra $5 is the answer. I think that she just needs to eliminate the problem by posting a weight limit somewhere. That way she doesn't end up with any broken chairs and doesn't need to impose a surcharge. And if Ms. Fonville doesn't like it, perhaps she might consider shedding a few pounds. It's not like she has to be that large, right? (If anyone leaves a comment having anything to do with the thyroid gland or a slow metabolism, so help me, I'll stab my screen.)

Sphere: Related Content

It's No Fun Being an Illegal Alien

If I wasn't already aware of the fact that it is extremely difficult to stage an effective boycott (not to mention that boycotts are rarely successful) I would suggest a boycott of specific retailers. However, since I am aware of how difficult it is to stage an effective boycott, I'm just going to point out how asinine corporate America has become that they will bow to the slightest hint that something might be offensive, especially when it is clearly not offensive.

This is dumber than the outlets that were pulling the Obama Chia Pet because whatever hybrid sprouts grew from the mud that you slathered on the terra cotta dome with a tongue depressor made it appear as if the Obama Chia Pet had an afro and that, for some reason, is racist. Wait a minute. No, it isn't! (I know. You know. We all know it isn't racist. I think even those who said it was racist knew it wasn't racist. But it might be. Maybe. To someone. Somewhere. We haven't found them yet, but we're prepared to have NO Chia Obama's on the shelf if they ever are to materialize. And go shopping. There.)

The non-issue at hand this time which is being overblown to the point that Target stores have removed the item from their shelves is quite ingenious and quite funny. Picture this: You have an orange jumpsuit with "Department of Corrections" inked in a stencil format on the back. Long sleeves, long legs, your typical jumpsuit, all orange. The mask is one of those that pulls all the way over your head and is make of some sort of rubber and it looks like your typical man from outer space. You know the look. It's the one that all of the denizens of the trailer parks describe after they've been abducted for medical experiments aboard a hovering craft and then returned to earth deep within a nearby forest. Yes. THAT look! Put that together with the daily garb from the inner workings of a prison and you've got yourself what? That's right. An illegal alien. Behold!

See, now my reaction to this costume is "HIL-arious!" But, according to The Chicago Tribune the reaction of some folks, say, like the group March 10th Committee (whatever the heck that is), say that the costume "makes a mockery of the status of millions of immigrants in need of immigration reform." That coming from a one Jorge Mujica who is an activist of that March group thing. There are other reactions too, like that from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, whose executive director, a one Joshua Hoyt, says that "When a corporation dehumanizes immigrants, the best thing is to stop buying from it." ::: sigh ::: Must we continue to go through this? I guess we must.

I suppose I'll start with the comments of Mr. Hoyt. I fully agree with everything that he says in that statement. However, we are not talking about dehumanizing anyone. AND if there WERE to be any dehumanizing going on, it would not be against immigrants, it would be against illegal aliens. (And that, by the way, is the correct term. The politically correct term is "illegal immigrant". The correct term is "illegal alien". Please make a note. And prepare to be looked upon as a racist if you ever utter that term.) I would absolutely not lend my patronage to any store which dehumanized legal residents of this country who have legally immigrated here from elsewhere on the planet. NEVER. I agree with Mr. Hoyt 100%. However, this instance has nothing to do with that, so what he said, while agreeable and correct, is irrelevant in this case. Next!

As far as Mr. Mujica's statement about millions of immigrants in need of immigration reform, I don't know that is a true statement. I'm sure that there are millions of illegal immigrants (aka, criminal trespassers in this country) who would love some reform in the area of illegal immigration. I believe they want the kind of reform that makes them not illegal immigrants any more. That's like my saying I think that there needs to be height reform because I'm only 5'7" and I want to be 5'10" and I want someone to make it OK for me to say that I'm 5'10" even though I'm only 5'7". Not only do I want it to be OK for me to say I'm 5'10", I want others to have to ACT like I'm 5'10". That includes craning their necks upward when talking to me, even if that means they can no longer see my face. As far as we're all concerned, I'm 5'10" now, dammit, so act like it!

Target has pulled the costumes and issued a pansy-ass statement which reads in part "It was never our intent to offend the consumers with the products we offer." Really?! You mean that you don't try to intentionally piss people off with your products? Huh. Interesting. What the hell, Target?! That sort of an apology means to me that you think it's as ridiculous of an assumption that the costumes are offensive as I do!

You know what's going to keep me from hanging myself? It's the hope and the small sliver of belief that one day, one fine and glorious day, a corporation will come out and say, "We're sorry if some people felt offended at the costume. You can't please everyone. We try to, but no one can. It's just a fact of life. We don't believe the item to be racist, nor was it intended to be racist. Have a nice day, the product stays." Because do you know what will happen if a corporation does that? Seriously. Do you know what will happen? I do. And it might not be what one would initially think.

That corporation, that business, that store, that enterprise, whatever that is, it will become the most popular store in America if they took that stand. I guarantee it. I know that I am not alone in thinking that this whole "everything is racist" crap has gone too far. Everyone it talks to thinks it's crap. The company who is the first to stand up to these fear mongerers (which is what they are) in the corporate world will be hailed as a God-like hero in the consumer world. It is the stuff that legends are spun from. I guarantee it.

While I'm not "boycotting" Target, their backing down to some half-ass activist group (what is it that happened on March 10th? I'm not going to take the time to look it up, because I'm sure that it will only irritate me to find out that it was some massacre of sorts that took place and that the evil white man was responsible.) has caused me to rethink how I spend my money. For instance, I had every intention of swinging by my local Target today as their Sunday circular showed they had some 1/4-zip fleece tops I was interested in. Look, they were only $12.99 each (and I do enjoy a 1/4-zip), I get that it isn't much of a dent in the bottom line of Target (if they can have a bottom "line", as that logo of theirs is all round), but my point is that I decided not to even go there and look at them (as I would have bought at least one) because of their decision to pull the costume. Again, it's not a "boycott", it's just my making a conscious decision to buy my fleece tops that only zip 1/4 of the way down somewhere else is all.

Let's review: Everything out there that someone doesn't like isn't necessarily racist or motivated by racism. An "immigrant" is someone who is in this country legally. An "illegal immigrant" is someone who is in this country, what? Illegally, that is correct. The illegal immigrant Halloween costume is extremely funny and no one should be offended by it (unless you are actually an alien from another planet). Corporations will cower like scared little children if they think someone is going to brand their organization a racist. I am not the only one who is waiting for the day when some company says (and I'm paraphrasing here, but any corporation is free to use this exact wording if they please), "Be angry. That's your problem. Go spend your pesos somewhere else if you want, we're not racist, so deal with it." And finally, fleece is warm and fuzzy and with a 1/4-zip top, you can let in just enough air so that you don't sweat to death. Thank you and goodnight.

Sphere: Related Content