Steve Jobs: iPrick
Mikey 21 comments
Steve Jobs has been known to fire off some seemingly thoughtless email responses in his time, but none come as close to showing him as a colossal prick more than this one.
When 22 year old journalism student Chelsea Kate Isaacs queried Apple's big cheese on why their PR department consistently ignored her inquiries, the back and forth between them ended with a show stopper.
Chelsea Kate Isaacs: "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."
Steve Jobs: Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry
Chelsea Kate Isaacs: 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.
Steve Jobs: Nope. We have over 300 million users and we can't respond to their requests unless they involve a problem of some kind. Sorry.
Chelsea Kate Isaacs: 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.
Steve Jobs: Please leave us alone.
Wow. Way to treat your customers there Steve. I think if you're going to engage in an email conversation with random customers, you owe it to them to at least be polite.
A simple "Sorry about that, I can't guess why you've not had any response from our PR department. Maybe the people at your university can comment on why the decision was made to buy iPads for students, as we only make the product, we don't decide where it goes. Thanks for your message all the same." might have been the better approach.
Regardless of what her enquiry was about, it would have wasted no more than a minute of Job's time to provide a respectful reply, and he wouldn't come away from it looking like a douche-bag.
The Boob
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 09:25 AMHe's testing a new PR team to see how they clean up this mess
Trent Greguhn
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 11:34 AMAnd the biggest douchebag in the universe goes to...
Rodney
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 11:55 AMThe irony being he spent more time on being a prick than he would have had to on simply helping her.
peter
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 12:25 PMwho cares? do you realy think this will affect peoples view of apple and their products? not really! Jobs can get away with anything now, people really dont care about anything anymore ad the like's of Jobs et al know it
Actually Mike, I'm I'm quite relieved, for a second there I thought Apple was introducing some new kind of space-age dildo.
f~
Jane
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 06:32 PMI wonder if Jobs would have behaved better if she had emailed him from an iphone instead of a blackberry
TVBIZ(BOB)
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 07:42 PMI guess in a funny sort of way he is right in saying that he or his company cannot answer every single e-mail sent to them when it's clearly obvious that there was no technical problem included.
Think about it!
It's hard enough to get an answer from other companies when you do have a problem.
The lady involved could have gone down another route - her approach comes across as being a bit bitchy and sarcastic. I understand frustration will cause this but doing battle with the head of a company will get you nowhere.
In saying that Mr Jobs could have handled himself a bit more professionally with his response - but maybe it was a bad hair day for him.
The tall poppy syndrome is happening all over again. Gates was the first now Jobs.
I often thought how long it would take for the world to turn on Apples head.
Rodney
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 09:27 PM...in response to this comment by TVBIZ(BOB). Except he *did* have the time to respond to her abusively. Sure, no one at Apple had the time to respond at all... except the CEO who took time to put the boot in....
That's just asking for bad PR.
Papa
Monday 20th September 2010 | 12:03 AMOr this is a great exposure stunt for the young journalist...
Funny if it is real, I agree with the comment above, he probably would have responded better if the messages weren't sent from a T-Mobile Blackberry!
Tony Fyler
Monday 20th September 2010 | 12:09 AMI've had occasion to try the Apple PR teams in both the UK and the US myself. Bloody useless on both sides of the Atlantic. Thing is, he's broken rule 1 of media presentation here, hasn't he? Don't piss off the journalist...
...in response to this comment by Davo. There's an app for that
Jake Farr-Wharton
Tuesday 21st September 2010 | 08:14 AMThis has to be a hoax.
...in response to this comment by Jake Farr-Wharton. The source confirmed the email headers were legit
Henk V
Tuesday 21st September 2010 | 04:33 PMLet me guess, you guys are as religious as a pope.. The phones are nice but dont hurt our heads with science and technology. What is that? 6 authors past may have had just the one inkling to actually post on the breakthroughs of the past fortnight, possibly just one post on many of the ongoing arguments in science today.
Your entire world is nature and the science that tries to describe it and all you lot post is your new games and phones.
Wow.
You guys do know that re-imaging by game chips is actually viable. You wouldnt have seen it on rusty lime.
...in response to this comment by Henk V. Yes, it's very easy to sit back a whine about what content doesn't appear on a web site, when you're not contributing anything.
The cool thing about the internet is - get this - if one site doesn't cover a topic you are interested in, there are a thousand others that will. Amazing huh?
FYI all the contributors here are voluntary, have no schedule or minimum quotas to adhere too, and are able to write in any subject that interests them. With that in mind, right now myself and others are experiencing incredibly busy times in our real lives and seldom have time to contribute as much as we would like.
But if you're so inclined, you're welcome to apply to become a contributor (there's a big banner on the homepage) and if you're approved you can write all you want about 're-imaging by game chips' or any other subject.
Henk V
Wednesday 22nd September 2010 | 03:08 PMMikey, I have been banned since my first moron head removal.
Dya really think I didnt want to give you a lesson in multivariate calculus?
Henk V
Wednesday 22nd September 2010 | 03:14 PMsorry that was Marvin...apologies... that wishfull thinking post deserved to have its head ripped off by a high school kid
as Mama bears was when she started giving medical advice to a depressive.
Papa
Sunday 26th September 2010 | 04:04 PM...in response to this comment by Henk V. "Mikey, I have been banned since my first moron head removal. "
Where the heck was I for this?! Danget I missed it...
Treva
Sunday 19th September 2010 | 09:22 AMiPrick now I get it. What a dick.