Usually we praise a CEO for responding directly to customers but Apple’s Steve Jobs has made a hobby of talking tough to those who email him at sjobs@apple.com. In the latest case, because she couldn’t get a quote out of the PR department, a college journalism student took him to task. So he took her to hers, saying “Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade” and “Please leave us alone.”
You can read the transcript of two turds throwing themselves at each other over at Valleywag.
Every interaction you have with your customers is a chance to redefine and/or burnish your brand and reputation. Apparently Jobs is concerned that not enough people know that he’s ruthless.
Steve Jobs In Email Pissing Match with College Journalism Student [Valleywag]
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I can’t take anyone seriously when they’re making “duckface.”
Both of them.
My goals do not include following fanboys. I’m getting a Droid or Blackberry. Sorry
It takes brass balls emailing SJ from a device that is other than an Apple product. It’s no wonder he was so blunt with her. But she did accomplish reiterating that for a CEO, SJ should stick to the lab and leave the PR to the pros. Remember the antenna quip he made: “don’t hold it that way…”, what a douche… It was his pompous, holier than thou tone that tipped me towards the Droid X and away from the Apple cult.
I like all the people finding fault with the girl here…she may come across as being an ‘entitled brat’, but she was initially pointing out the fact that the PR dept. WASN’T DOING THEIR JOB. They had a request from the public that they ignored. All the fluff about her grade aside, shouldn’t they do that, if it’s their job?
Wouldn’t that be akin to going in for tech support and having the two behind the counter arguing star wars all day and never acknowledging her? (I concede that one is a true ‘customer’ bringing money in…but a PR department NEVER directly brings money in. Their job is to deal with the public and their general questions, in the same way tech support deals with the public and their tech problems.)
It’s not like they said “Sorry, we won’t answer you”. That would have been ok. Instead, they ignored her. She was annoyed at being ignored, which I think is valid.
We don’t know what her questions were, so we don’t know if she “wanted an interview” or if she was rather asking very basic questions and wanted to be able to reference Apple itself rather than a publication that was referencing Apple (she may have even just been asking for repeats of previous quotes that are the party line, but ones she can point to as “there’s no way this is skewed, this is wordforword what I was sent). If she was trying to get an interview, then yeah, she’s out of line. But if she was saying “I read that you guys feel that ‘macs kick the teeth out of pcs in every way including sexiness’, is that a true quote?”, then that’s just basic research, performed in a good manner. They ignored her, so she sent off an annoyed text, not expecting a response, to the big kahuna complaining that a division wasn’t doing its job. She also added the bit about the grade.
Then she got a reply, and it was rude. Her response wasn’t fantastic, but pointed out that she, as a customer, wanted information. The grade part was so much fluffery. I wager she thought it might get a better response if she played it up, much like when people who just don’t like a food try to claim they’re allergic to it. Obviously didn’t work in this case.
She certainly has no legal right to demand any of this info from a company. But Apple is clearly in the wrong here, from a politeness standpoint. When you have a division that is specifically set up to deal with the public proceed to ignore the public, and then you actually get mad at the public that dares point that out, you’re being rude. Especially when that member of the public is in one of the demographics that makes up your biggest customer set.
Steve Jobs is a dick, and I refuse to buy Apple products on principle. For just this type of behavior/mindset.
Finally, a reply that actually addresses the issue instead of blaming the student, bashing/excusing Jobs’ behavior, or giving Apple’s Media Relations a pass for, y’know, not bothering to do their job. Thank fuck, I was losing hope that someone rational would actually come along and comment on this.
Section 1) MEDIA RELATIONS
You said it best. MEDIA relations… If she was CNN then she wouldn’t have had to leave 6 messages. Hell, if she were actually a customer calling about a particular product she owned, she likely would have gotten a prompt response too (based on prior Apple PR stories). Instead, from the e-mail exchange it is clear that she is an entitled brat who hounded the PR department for comments about rumors of a small potential future ipad rollout for a journalism class assignment screaming about deadlines and grades. Then she e-mailed the CEO to demand some satisfaction… he had the cajones to tell her the truth instead of some sugar-coated PC nonsense form letter about how “valuable her opinion is or how important her comments are to the company”
She would be at the bottom of my to-do pile as well. You know why? Because if I worked for the PR department, I would be busy doing my JOB buttering up an actual MEDIA outlet, not bending to the whim of every journalism student doing class project that calls contstantly and leaves me half-a-dozen voicemails. It takes time to listen to that garbage to make sure it isn’t actually something important!
…
which brings us to POINT #2 –>
SECTION 2) JOB
Let’s not live in fairytale world here. The JOB of every Apple employee (a publicly traded company) is to “make bucket loads of money for their shareholders.” PERIOD FULL STOP. Read that again a few times because very few people in these comments seem to understand that fundamental fact of our universe. It is NOT their job to stroke your ego, or make you feel important, or help with your class project. Most of the time, those things coincidentally align with making money, but not always!
If you had infinite resources you could answer every inquiry and kiss every baby. But in the real world you can’t make everyone happy. There are a finite number of hours in the day, and a finite amount of money any company can sink into any particular endeavor (including PR). Given the brand loyalty and brand awareness that Apple commands (and their astronomical stock gains in the past decade), I’d say that empirically their PR department is doing a stellar job.
I’m not a fan of Apple. I think my PC and Droid are vastly superior. But I am actually a HUGE fan of how Steve handled himself today. Instead of cracking heads at an undoubtedly hard-working PR department, he prioritized his companies finite resources, kept it real, gave an honest reply, and put a nagger in her place.
P.S. How many CEO’s would have even read her e-mail, much less personally respond to it with how they honestly felt?
You make two assumptions here: 1, that she “hounded them” for quotes. Although some people pointed out websites with press releases, we might just as well assume that she just wanted their press releases from them, again so that she can be sure they are accurate and unchanged. A completely reasonable request. 2, that the Apple PR department is all ‘hard working’. Its impossible that her reasonable request was ignored by lazy staffers who found it easier to ignore her than to do anything, since she is after all not a big name anything?
We cannot assume your assumptions, or mine. I will assume, however, that Jobs didn’t do research into it, I believe his reply was too quick for that. So therefore…he’s an ass. Who responded to someone finding fault by doing what I expect him to do…”can’t be my/my company’s fault, F YOU!” If his response had been “I looked into it and you’ve been hounding them for interviews they don’t want or need to provide, so F you”, THEN I would agree that it’s a cool response.
Oh, and btw:
The JOB of every Apple employee (a publicly traded company) is to “make bucket loads of money for their shareholders.”
No. Not at all true. The JOB of a safety officer is to ensure safety, NOT to make money. The JOB of the accountants may be to save as much money on taxes as possible, but at the same time it’s to make sure they comply with the law. The JOB of the PR department is to relate with the public, NOT to directly make money…PR is a very strange beast in terms of money-making, and you can’t tell what names are or are not big enough to warrant a response, really. After all, helping an 8 y/o with his school project might get you in the local papers, then picked up on Good Morning America for it, which would be wonderful PR, and much better than any press release. So you can’t say “Well, they ignored her ’cause she’s a nobody”. If they ignored her for being rude, fine. That would make sense, in fact. But don’t assume that the mighty machine of Jobs can never be wrong.
Jobs always has been an Asshole and will always be one. I can honestly say I own zero Apple products and will not own an Apple product. A generic mp3 player has worked great for me. I would still like to know how most people die waiting for a transplant but a certain CEO got one pretty quick? Say what you want about Gates but at least hes giving it away and trying to make a difference.
I gotta side with Steve on this one. She was asking for information for a school assignment, that may possibly be published in a school paper — I can’t fault Apple PR for not putting her at the top of the priority list. Also, I’m sure she could have found the information she was looking for on their website. The email she sent was super-long and basically said, “wah, I need you guys to talk to me so I can get a good grade, but you haven’t! Wah!” Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple. If he says it’s not a priority, it’s not a priority. He may have been terse, but someone needed to put this girl in her place.
“Sent via Blackberry from T-Mobile.”
Maybe that has something to do with it.
I think he’s just pissed that she’s using a Blackberry and not an iPhone. Had she sent it from an iPhone he might have been more receptive.
I don’t see what the problem is.
She was working on an article about a college’s plan to buy iPads for incoming students. She asked for a quote from Apple on the plan and she got one from Steve Jobs himself!
“Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry”
That seems like a perfectly clear and relevant quote to me. She should just go ahead and write the article based on that quote.
Apple Product Owned: 1
…And it was a gift (Gen 2 iPod Shuffle).
I had posted this on the original Valleywag article but this girl is a severe narcissist who hilariously exposed her huge ego on a self written bio. She deserved what she got.
http://wikibin.org/articles/chelsea-isaacs.html
If you didn’t think she was self entitled and arrogant before wait until you read her egotistical self written biography….
Favorite line: “At the age of 8, she was discovered by a well-known director amusing a crowd of pedestrians close to her residence in New York City. Since then, she has appeared on various Nickelodeon commercials, shows, and independent films. In 1998, Isaacs was the most desirable hand model in the United States and Canada.”
This too ” She has won 18 poetry contests throughout the world, and has been referred to as a “Renaissance Woman.
I hope this is a hoax, but to be honest Steve Jobs if rich enough to be as big of a dick as he wants. People will still get on their knees every day in front of him no matter what he says. In other news, the formerly evil Bill Gates is trying to end world hunger and refuses to make his kids billionaires by mere inheritance. Oh and Linux and Android still rock! I love me some Ubuntu.
CEO of a major corporation is an asshole, news at 11.
So Apple didn’t call her back. Boo-hoo. She needs to stop whining and stop expecting that everyone see her as the center of the universe.
I for one think this is a hoax.
She should’ve lied and said she was a real reporter (maybe for the school paper).
By this point, to expect Steve Jobs to send you a nice e-mail is misguided.
I don’t think any CEO would have responded kindly to this student’s entitled, unprofessional e-mails anyway. That doesn’t absolved Jobs at all, but this girl really needs to wake up and act like an adult.
I see the problem…every one of here emails ends in…> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile. Honestly, I don’t blame Steve one bit….as a good journalist should…if a source doesn’t pan out…you find another one. He is right, maybe he could have been a bit nicer in saying it, but it’s to the point…it’s not his job to get her a good grade…and just because you own an Apple product…doesn’t give you any more rights…
Well, the man’s dying, so I’ll give him a break on this one. Probably one of the items on his bucket list:
#207: Pick one complaint email at random and tick off the whiny bugger
This is why you shouldn’t get in a crap-slinging match. No matter who wins, you still end up smelling bad at the end.
“Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile”
I think that’s the REAL reason that he wouldn’t help her. Now I can understand that Apples PR dept. is busy, but how hard would it have been for him to forward her e-mail to them . But then again, he has no real responsibility to help her. She could have easily could have made a post on their web site and might have gotten more help. Just because you neeeed help from them doesn’t automatically mean you will get it. If she is a journalism student, she should get used to getting her hands dirty digging for info!
You can bet your bottom dollar that the same people going “DERP DERP I ADMIRE HIS HONESTY” would be throwing a bitchfit if it was Bill Gates in this situation.
I’m a big fan of wild speculation, so thanks for your post!
Is it fun to make up facts?
I could careless who it is, who did it or why they did it…whether it be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the Pope, Ronald McDonald…I would still take out my little violin and play the woe is me song and maybe even bust out with…nobody loves me.. everybody hates me..guess I’ll go eat worms.
I still think they all have better things to do than to waste time hearing this college student whine how no one is answering them at Apple…be responsible OP and look for another source…I’m sure Gray Powell would have been more than happy to meet her out for a beer or two…
what is it with all of you loser apple fan boys? most of you would defend apple if it raped your sister.
pathetic!
I guess what this really shows is maybe the sjobs@apple is a figurehead email? Maybe somebody on the staff wasn’t in a good mood.
“Her journalism professor had assigned her a story on a new initiative at her college to buy iPads for all incoming students. She wanted to get a quote from Apple about the use of iPads in academic settings.”
Key word here is “wanted”. There is a metric shitton of press releases, slideshare presentations, and other information online about the use of iPads in education.
Here you go, Chelsea: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=iPad+education
You’re welcome. And good luck with that lucrative journalism career!
“And good luck with that lucrative journalism career!”
I guffaw’d.
“Key word here is “wanted”. There is a metric shitton of press releases, slideshare presentations, and other information online about the use of iPads in education.”
Yeah, she’s a lazy researcher akin to those j-school grads that tweet looking for ideas for stories.
Closing the first communication with “Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile” pretty much set the tone from there on out. What an idiot.
I would have said ..
P.S. What kind of dumb ass shows his unprotected product off to a competitor.
The self involved crashes head long into the self involved. Its the nexus of narcissism. This is my favorite:
“Department fails to answer any of my questions which are, as I have repeatedly told them, essential to my academic performance.”
followed by:
“I never said that your goal should be to “help me get a good grade.” “
A hand model indeed!
You are CEO. DO YOUR GODDAMN JOB OR GTFO THE MARKET YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY RUINING!!!
He is completely impolite for no reason and very bad at his job if it causes him so much stress that he needs to be such a dickhead. Probably grew up somewhere in the mountains…