Boy, do I ever agree with your outrage here. I remember the "bean counter eras" at Apple with Gil Amelio and John Sculley. The company dove into the dirt!
Tim Cook, wake up and correct this mistake NOW!
Tim Cook is a bean counter. In fact, he is the bean counter extraordinaire. What do you think operations is, anyway? Browett also has a deep operations background. He never showed he cared about customer service in his career. He is a spreadsheet junkie, just like Cook, so that's why Cook hired the guy.
Also, as I mentioned when he was hired, he's a Brit. My experience with Brit managers has not been good. There are some very basic communications problems between Americans and Brits that neither side sees till way too late.
At the end of the day, this mess is on Cook's responsibility, not Browett. Obviously Cook does not get the importance of customer service either. Those of you saying Jobs would have fired Browett need to understand that Jobs would have never hired him to begin with. Jobs put the best people in each part of the company, for the job they had. For retail he hired an awesome retailer. Cook, instead, hired a copy of himself, but with an English accent. Not a good sign.
The only way hiring someone like Browett makes sense is if you want Apple to morph into Samsung. Maybe Cook does want this, after all, he's the one that maximised efficiency in the supply chain; he's a bean counter not a visionary. Browett is just a liability for Apple, and I said so here at the time of Browett's hiring. Nobody from either Dixons or Tesco can conceive of the Apple strategy, they only know "pile crap high and sell it cheap"
I worry about Apple - all the Steve Jobs stuff is vanishing fast; the Woz stuff went long before that. Steve placed inflexible hard to achieve targets for product releases, and stuck to them as in the iPhone - Tim Cook seems to have allowed for more 'flexibility' here so the iPhone 5 is already late.
"Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we've met," Cook said in a statement. "We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple."
I know this is off topic, but what is bothering you there?
They're being made to make sequels and shorts (to mirror Dreamworks' shorts. You know Dreamworks—the Microsoft to Pixar's Apple…) when the Pixar team doesn't have the proper stories in place like they normally do. Thing about all their stuff before the sequels was that they didn't do it unless they knew they could do it incredibly well. That's definitely Steve rubbing off on them, the true Pixar, from before the purchase.
You can FEEL that Cars 2 didn't have the same heart to it as Cars. You can TELL that Monsters University won't have the same impact as Monsters Inc.
AND IF THAT "FINDING NEMO 2" RUMOR IS TRUE, I SWEAR, DISNEY… What could they possibly do?! He gets lost again?!
Pixar needs to buy their freedom and make their stuff on their own time and with their own docket.
First of all, we don't actually know if this jerk said those things. If he did then yes, he deserves to be fired.
Secondly, I've been noticing some dangerous signs that all is not well at Apple after Steve's death. First, they release products that Steve would never have approved. For example, the new Airport Express. The old one perfectly fit its purpose. A traveling wifi router. The new one is bigger, heavier, AND comes with a long attachable cord. Now how in the hell would anyone consider that an improvement over the old? Steve would have forced the new model to have all of the new capabilities but have it come in a smaller and lighter package. In addition, he would have kept the most important feature, the attached wall plug!
Also, look at the horrible string of commercials lately. First, Steve would have NEVER approved of using celebrities in Apple ads. Do you know why? Because he sees his products as the stars of his commercials. Why would he pay someone to upstage it??? But apparently Tim thinks that it's appropriate. Or how about those Olympic ads that had the Genius helping people? Pure utter crap. Again, Tim green lighted it. Does Tim have any taste?
And what about the numerous leaks lately of the products Apple is working on??? How exactly is this doubling down on security Tim?!? Steve would have put his steel boots up the rectum of the person who's leaking this stuff. He would have spared no expense tracking the leak down. Instead the leaks continue unabated.
And now, Tim hires a bozo when Steve was adement about the hiring of B players.
I think Steve made a huge mistake when he told these bozos don't ask what would Steve do? I think he should have ask them to ALWAYS ask what would Steve do as its apparent that they have no taste and are completely devoid of good ideas themselves.
So I don't know about you guys but I'm clearly not feeling confident that Tim will be able to manage Apple for the long term. I think we may have an Apple version of Steve Baller here.
What Tim should do now is rehire Johnson since he's doing poorly at JC Penny. Who knows how long Johnson has left at Penny? By hiring him back you can help him save face.
While I fully agree that this guy is an idiot, hasn't anybody ever gone into an Apple Store and felt like there wasn't any space to move around because of all the people in blue shirts? Thinking that a vending machine (provided to us in the form of EasyPay) might simplify things?
Of course, the real problem in that case is generally that the store is too small for the crowds. The strategy should be to expedite expansion/replacement stores.
Can I get $3.5MM for my effort? Happy to take it in options...
While I fully agree that this guy is an idiot, hasn't anybody ever gone into an Apple Store and felt like there wasn't any space to move around because of all the people in blue shirts? Thinking that a vending machine (provided to us in the form of EasyPay) might simplify things?
Of course, the real problem in that case is generally that the store is too small for the crowds. The strategy should be to expedite expansion/replacement stores.
Can I get $3.5MM for my effort? Happy to take it in options...
I've certainly felt that stores were overfilled with people but I can't say my lack of comfort was because there were too many people wearing blue shirts.
Even if there are too many employees this is retail and this problem will go away on its own given enough time. On top of that there is the iPhone release coming up, followed by the holidays. But more to the point, 1) this is not the employee's problem for getting the job 2) Apple is so far from hurting that in no way this could be considered a strategic move to keep the company afloat, and 3) as we've seen with today's news even the idea of it has caused more harm than any good it could do for Apple that we're getting a retraction from John "asshat" Browett.
I CALLED IT. I knew Browett was behind the staff reductions. Tim Cook needs to send this guy packing, immediately.
Cook hired him. Likely knew his philosophies and very possibly approved his ideas.
We have zero proof of the alleged logic behind the experiment. For all we know they didn't lay off anyone but did the typical slow season cutting of hours that every company does, cut some of the slackers, said goodbye to uk seasonals brought on for the Olympics who were told they would likely not be kept on and so forth. And folks are 'leaking' false reports of what was going on and why.
Truth is there was a time when Apple employees were of a much higher quality than recent months. Browetts logic could have been to get back to that and the folks that saw huge cuts were the slackers. Who knows.
If Steve was here, he'll cut you like you did with the new employees.
Or, actually knowing the truth about the reasons, Steve might have backed him up. We have no way of knowing since Steve is dead. So how about we show the man some respect and stop name dropping that he agrees or disagrees with whatever you do without any proof.
Anyone who has ever worked in Apple retail knows that their staffing has always been lean. Ive never worked in a place where they are able to get so much productivity out of a small group of very talented people. If anything they need more.
As a customer I have to disagree. Many times when I've been in one of the stories there's a pack of blue shirts ignoring customers to chat about the ball game, the hottie that just walked by etc. so maybe they could trim off some fat and dump those folks.
They're being made to make sequels and shorts (to mirror Dreamworks' shorts. You know Dreamworks—the Microsoft to Pixar's Apple…) when the Pixar team doesn't have the proper stories in place like they normally do. Thing about all their stuff before the sequels was that they didn't do it unless they knew they could do it incredibly well. That's definitely Steve rubbing off on them, the true Pixar, from before the purchase.
You can FEEL that Cars 2 didn't have the same heart to it as Cars. You can TELL that Monsters University won't have the same impact as Monsters Inc.
AND IF THAT "FINDING NEMO 2" RUMOR IS TRUE, I SWEAR, DISNEY… What could they possibly do?! He gets lost again?!
Pixar needs to buy their freedom and make their stuff on their own time and with their own docket.
To be honest, I feel that the original Cars was one of the poorer efforts by Pixar. It was literally Doc Hollywood in drag. I didn't even bother watching Cars 2.
First, Steve would have NEVER approved of using celebrities in Apple ads. Do you know why? Because he sees his products as the stars of his commercials. Why would he pay someone to upstage it??? But apparently Tim thinks that it's appropriate. Or how about those Olympic ads that had the Genius helping people? Pure utter crap. Again, Tim green lighted it. Does Tim have any taste?
I'm so sick of hearing "Steve would never have blah blah blah". Have people forgotten it was Steve who recommended the board name Tim Cook CEO? It seems tie Jobs fanboys have forgotten that.
They're being made to make sequels and shorts (to mirror Dreamworks' shorts. You know Dreamworks—the Microsoft to Pixar's Apple…) when the Pixar team doesn't have the proper stories in place like they normally do. Thing about all their stuff before the sequels was that they didn't do it unless they knew they could do it incredibly well. That's definitely Steve rubbing off on them, the true Pixar, from before the purchase.
You can FEEL that Cars 2 didn't have the same heart to it as Cars. You can TELL that Monsters University won't have the same impact as Monsters Inc.
AND IF THAT "FINDING NEMO 2" RUMOR IS TRUE, I SWEAR, DISNEY… What could they possibly do?! He gets lost again?!
Pixar needs to buy their freedom and make their stuff on their own time and with their own docket.
I can see that. I'm curious how long they'll be able to attract top talent too. Pixar doesn't really pay the highest salaries, nor would such a large outfit operation as much room for individual creative freedom. They're reliant on prestige and cool films to attract some of the best people. I haven't seen Brave yet. Having noted the previews, that chick's hair looked like a truly insane amount of work. I mean just building and controlling it to that level of detail. The rest of it has looked a little bleh. I always found the way they programmed PRman to be remarkably cool.
Something to consider further; THE most expensive part of business is people. Some may not agree but when you take in to consideration the many different and distinctive departments that serve staff, ie, HR, insurance admin, payroll, etc. people become very costly. Less is more. To be fair we really don't know why the staffing became bloated. But it is entirely possible that store management became lazy or autocratic or ???
We, as Apple, supporters know better that to denigrate a person's nationality. There is no room in this issue or any other for that. In fact, we know "what" but not "why".
It is entirely possible the reason given is just corporate speak for something much more problematic. In fact, to most of us the idea of "making the stores more profitable by thinning staff" seems thin given Apple's profits and prospects for continued uptick. But it could easily be that as staff gets thick and flabby quality slips. The "that's not my job" mantra becomes a swan song. Seen it and been there.
Steve is gone. Apple must find its own way. Steve left a good work plan tor Tim. It's a sure bet Tim is doing his best. Many changes at Apple are taking place. Focus away from computers to phones, tablets and TV. If the trend continues many Apple stores will be mere kiosks! No genius required. The customer will be his or her own genius.....almost that now!
But ask yourself: what's after that? That is the star to watch. Don't be blinded by the flash bulbs. Look higher, guys!
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Boy, do I ever agree with your outrage here. I remember the "bean counter eras" at Apple with Gil Amelio and John Sculley. The company dove into the dirt!
Tim Cook, wake up and correct this mistake NOW!
Tim Cook is a bean counter. In fact, he is the bean counter extraordinaire. What do you think operations is, anyway? Browett also has a deep operations background. He never showed he cared about customer service in his career. He is a spreadsheet junkie, just like Cook, so that's why Cook hired the guy.
Also, as I mentioned when he was hired, he's a Brit. My experience with Brit managers has not been good. There are some very basic communications problems between Americans and Brits that neither side sees till way too late.
At the end of the day, this mess is on Cook's responsibility, not Browett. Obviously Cook does not get the importance of customer service either. Those of you saying Jobs would have fired Browett need to understand that Jobs would have never hired him to begin with. Jobs put the best people in each part of the company, for the job they had. For retail he hired an awesome retailer. Cook, instead, hired a copy of himself, but with an English accent. Not a good sign.
The only way hiring someone like Browett makes sense is if you want Apple to morph into Samsung. Maybe Cook does want this, after all, he's the one that maximised efficiency in the supply chain; he's a bean counter not a visionary. Browett is just a liability for Apple, and I said so here at the time of Browett's hiring. Nobody from either Dixons or Tesco can conceive of the Apple strategy, they only know "pile crap high and sell it cheap"
I worry about Apple - all the Steve Jobs stuff is vanishing fast; the Woz stuff went long before that. Steve placed inflexible hard to achieve targets for product releases, and stuck to them as in the iPhone - Tim Cook seems to have allowed for more 'flexibility' here so the iPhone 5 is already late.
Sad. Very sad.
"Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we've met," Cook said in a statement. "We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple."
Well, I guess he was wrong here.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/290451/20120131/john-browett-apple-hired-dixons-ceo-retail.htm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
What Disney is forcing Pixar to do makes me furious… thanks for bringing that up in my mind again…
I know this is off topic, but what is bothering you there?
Originally Posted by hmm
I know this is off topic, but what is bothering you there?
They're being made to make sequels and shorts (to mirror Dreamworks' shorts. You know Dreamworks—the Microsoft to Pixar's Apple…) when the Pixar team doesn't have the proper stories in place like they normally do. Thing about all their stuff before the sequels was that they didn't do it unless they knew they could do it incredibly well. That's definitely Steve rubbing off on them, the true Pixar, from before the purchase.
You can FEEL that Cars 2 didn't have the same heart to it as Cars. You can TELL that Monsters University won't have the same impact as Monsters Inc.
AND IF THAT "FINDING NEMO 2" RUMOR IS TRUE, I SWEAR, DISNEY… What could they possibly do?! He gets lost again?!
Pixar needs to buy their freedom and make their stuff on their own time and with their own docket.
"How to become an Executive of a leading Retail Chain" :
1. Get an MBA
2. Kiss some serious ass
3. Use big words like "lean" and "optimize"
4. Rise to a higher level by firing someone below you
5. When you finally become an executive.............. fire more people use even bigger words, kiss fewer asses, probably just the CEO.
Tada!!!!
Originally Posted by jay1985
"How to become an Executive of a leading Retail Chain" :
1. Get an MBA
2. Kiss some serious ass
3. Use big words like "lean" and "optimize"
4. Rise to a higher level by firing someone below you
5. When you finally become an executive.............. fire more people use even bigger words, kiss fewer asses, probably just the CEO.
Tada!!!!
Well, Apple probably feels good about this plan requiring the purchase of their products. ????
Look at that hair.
Looking at that picture makes me want to smack him.
"Even if customer service is affected" what a dueshe bag.
Secondly, I've been noticing some dangerous signs that all is not well at Apple after Steve's death. First, they release products that Steve would never have approved. For example, the new Airport Express. The old one perfectly fit its purpose. A traveling wifi router. The new one is bigger, heavier, AND comes with a long attachable cord. Now how in the hell would anyone consider that an improvement over the old? Steve would have forced the new model to have all of the new capabilities but have it come in a smaller and lighter package. In addition, he would have kept the most important feature, the attached wall plug!
Also, look at the horrible string of commercials lately. First, Steve would have NEVER approved of using celebrities in Apple ads. Do you know why? Because he sees his products as the stars of his commercials. Why would he pay someone to upstage it??? But apparently Tim thinks that it's appropriate. Or how about those Olympic ads that had the Genius helping people? Pure utter crap. Again, Tim green lighted it. Does Tim have any taste?
And what about the numerous leaks lately of the products Apple is working on??? How exactly is this doubling down on security Tim?!? Steve would have put his steel boots up the rectum of the person who's leaking this stuff. He would have spared no expense tracking the leak down. Instead the leaks continue unabated.
And now, Tim hires a bozo when Steve was adement about the hiring of B players.
I think Steve made a huge mistake when he told these bozos don't ask what would Steve do? I think he should have ask them to ALWAYS ask what would Steve do as its apparent that they have no taste and are completely devoid of good ideas themselves.
So I don't know about you guys but I'm clearly not feeling confident that Tim will be able to manage Apple for the long term. I think we may have an Apple version of Steve Baller here.
What Tim should do now is rehire Johnson since he's doing poorly at JC Penny. Who knows how long Johnson has left at Penny? By hiring him back you can help him save face.
Of course, the real problem in that case is generally that the store is too small for the crowds. The strategy should be to expedite expansion/replacement stores.
Can I get $3.5MM for my effort? Happy to take it in options...
I've certainly felt that stores were overfilled with people but I can't say my lack of comfort was because there were too many people wearing blue shirts.
Even if there are too many employees this is retail and this problem will go away on its own given enough time. On top of that there is the iPhone release coming up, followed by the holidays. But more to the point, 1) this is not the employee's problem for getting the job 2) Apple is so far from hurting that in no way this could be considered a strategic move to keep the company afloat, and 3) as we've seen with today's news even the idea of it has caused more harm than any good it could do for Apple that we're getting a retraction from John "asshat" Browett.
Cook hired him. Likely knew his philosophies and very possibly approved his ideas.
We have zero proof of the alleged logic behind the experiment. For all we know they didn't lay off anyone but did the typical slow season cutting of hours that every company does, cut some of the slackers, said goodbye to uk seasonals brought on for the Olympics who were told they would likely not be kept on and so forth. And folks are 'leaking' false reports of what was going on and why.
Truth is there was a time when Apple employees were of a much higher quality than recent months. Browetts logic could have been to get back to that and the folks that saw huge cuts were the slackers. Who knows.
Or, actually knowing the truth about the reasons, Steve might have backed him up. We have no way of knowing since Steve is dead. So how about we show the man some respect and stop name dropping that he agrees or disagrees with whatever you do without any proof.
As a customer I have to disagree. Many times when I've been in one of the stories there's a pack of blue shirts ignoring customers to chat about the ball game, the hottie that just walked by etc. so maybe they could trim off some fat and dump those folks.
To be honest, I feel that the original Cars was one of the poorer efforts by Pixar. It was literally Doc Hollywood in drag. I didn't even bother watching Cars 2.
According to daring fireball some of the comments were all Gary Allen wording personal theories to come off like actual informed quotes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
They're being made to make sequels and shorts (to mirror Dreamworks' shorts. You know Dreamworks—the Microsoft to Pixar's Apple…) when the Pixar team doesn't have the proper stories in place like they normally do. Thing about all their stuff before the sequels was that they didn't do it unless they knew they could do it incredibly well. That's definitely Steve rubbing off on them, the true Pixar, from before the purchase.
You can FEEL that Cars 2 didn't have the same heart to it as Cars. You can TELL that Monsters University won't have the same impact as Monsters Inc.
AND IF THAT "FINDING NEMO 2" RUMOR IS TRUE, I SWEAR, DISNEY… What could they possibly do?! He gets lost again?!
Pixar needs to buy their freedom and make their stuff on their own time and with their own docket.
I can see that. I'm curious how long they'll be able to attract top talent too. Pixar doesn't really pay the highest salaries, nor would such a large outfit operation as much room for individual creative freedom. They're reliant on prestige and cool films to attract some of the best people. I haven't seen Brave yet. Having noted the previews, that chick's hair looked like a truly insane amount of work. I mean just building and controlling it to that level of detail. The rest of it has looked a little bleh. I always found the way they programmed PRman to be remarkably cool.
We, as Apple, supporters know better that to denigrate a person's nationality. There is no room in this issue or any other for that. In fact, we know "what" but not "why".
It is entirely possible the reason given is just corporate speak for something much more problematic. In fact, to most of us the idea of "making the stores more profitable by thinning staff" seems thin given Apple's profits and prospects for continued uptick. But it could easily be that as staff gets thick and flabby quality slips. The "that's not my job" mantra becomes a swan song. Seen it and been there.
Steve is gone. Apple must find its own way. Steve left a good work plan tor Tim. It's a sure bet Tim is doing his best. Many changes at Apple are taking place. Focus away from computers to phones, tablets and TV. If the trend continues many Apple stores will be mere kiosks! No genius required. The customer will be his or her own genius.....almost that now!
But ask yourself: what's after that? That is the star to watch. Don't be blinded by the flash bulbs. Look higher, guys!