Strange Fruit

Apart from being one of my absolute all time favorite songs, Strange Fruit is the subject for today.

Out of sheer respect, I’ll start out by talking about the actual song (by now you know that this post will have nothing to do with “strange fruit”, the song). Without sounding like an obsessive fan, that’s certainly the most compelling use of 3 minutes and 33 seconds I’ve ever heard. Historically, Of course, Lewis Allen wrote the lyrics and it was first jammed out by Billie Holiday in 1939. The year is particularly important to mention, especially for anyone who might not immediately get the impact this song had/ has.

I personally prefer a much later Nina Simone version, but nonetheless, it’s a HOT song.

So… Apple sucks. I can’t for the life of me understand why they’re even all over the market like they are. I have been saying this for many years and have gotten into several discussions/ arguments over it.

It’s somewhat gratifying to see that designers can make and maintain a behemoth corporation such as Apple. Let’s not kid ourselves, they have designers cranking out hot-looking products … and…. that’s about it. My question is WHERE is the “cross-functional” presence in that company? It’s not really a question because I’m confident that I know the answer:

Engineering: Hi, we’re the Apple engineers. We like to engineer things that break, quite easily actually. We like to devise batteries that die/ self-destruct. Last but not least, is everyone’s favorite; we like to engineer hard-drives that also die with no apparent cause.

Marketing: Hi, we’re the Apple marketers. We like to market things that break easy. THANK GOD for our hot designers because otherwise, we wouldn’t quite know what to market. We love to appeal to the market of people with active lifestyles. The best part is that the products we market are very fragile and cannot really endure an active lifestyle.

Support: Hi, we’re the Apple support team. We FIX everything, and man, are we busy. We’re definitely the BUSIEST people in the company. Things are always being sent back, but don’t stress over paying our salaries Mr. Steve Jobs. You see; we’re REALLY good at charging customers practically the same dollar amount that it cost them to get the damn thing. Ever heard of stores doing a 2 for 1 special? Ha! We figured out how to reverse that and give ‘em 1 for 2.

Sales: Hi, We’re the Apple sales reps. Yes indeed, we are the frontline of this shenanigan and are usually placed in situations where we have to deal with IRATE customers who come into our stores and cuss like mad people. However, we’re so numb to it by now, that we’ve developed some thick skin, thick skin with really, really sharp quills. You see, we get testy and condescending, and try to convince the customer that they actually dropped their iPod. Despite having several customers complaining at once, we will STILL insist on telling our customers that these OTHER customers don’t have issues with their products.

I kid, I kid, it’s Friday and I ain’t ‘bout to hate that much. Serious props to the Apple designers though…actually; nothing happened to MY iPod, I’m sort of writing this on behalf of someone else which is perhaps why this can be classified as a PG post. After all, I might get some free accessories out of this whole incident.

Happy Friday.

Note: Venus Williams was in town on Wednesday night and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Today: Glass