In Memoriam: Fake Steve Jobs has an ethical crisis
Everything's fine today, that is our illusion. -- Voltaire
As you no doubt know by now, earlier this month, 25-year old Sun Danyong, an employee of Foxconn — the company that manufactures the iPhone for Apple — was apparently driven to commit suicide as he was subjected “unbearable interrogation techniques” by his employer’s internal security group. Danyong was under investigation for losing a prototype device of a forthcoming iPhone.
As this incident unfolded, we were naturally following it, preparing to write a lengthy post for BlogLESS detailing the dense web of ethically unattractive business practices that combined to manufacture this grossly tragic event.
Given the magnitude of the tragedy, though, pontificating about business ethics, Apple or Foxconn seemed, if not misplaced, then at least unsavory. What luck for us all then, that Fake Steve Jobs delivered one of his best posts ever, finding an appropriate path to the heart of the problem without degenerating too far into the preachiness or grandstanding that a more sober response threatened.
(For those four of you who are currently reading BlogLESS and have never heard of FSJ — first of all, god bless you. Secondly, you’re in for a treat. FSJ runs a Steve Jobs parody blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs — tagline: “I will restore your sense of childlike wonder. There is nothing you can do to stop me.” — which, under normal auspices, can be very funny.)
Back to the matter at hand, though. I’ll now quote the July 21 entry from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs:
Well, this is the world we are living in. These are the people we are dealing with. This is how we have to deal with them. We can’t make these products in the United States. Nobody could afford to buy them if we did…
This time it’s getting to me. It really is. For a long time I couldn’t stop crying. Since then I’ve just been sitting in my office with the blinds shut. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s why I wasn’t on the earnings call today. I’m just numb. I’m asking myself, Is this really worth it? Is this what I want to do with my life? Can I live with myself?
| Tagged with: | Apple, Business Ethics, China, Fake Steve Jobs, Foxconn, iPhone, Manufacturing, Satire, Tragedy |
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