Job Well Done

No pun intended.

Dear Mr Job, I wish you a good journey and thank you for the memories.  You might not know this but Apple was my first introduction to computer technology.  Before that I did not even know a TV from a computer monitor.  

I was a "pure arts" student and of the old school too. Which meant we did this with our hands and not through tools like computers.  Ironic, eh?

Back then, my computer technology virginity was taken by a Classic II.  Woah, that takes us waaaaaay back.  Back when screens are monochrome.  It was grey screen then.  I had seen a the green one but I was given the "latest" so it was a Classic II for me.

My first technology client was also Apple. 

Dear Sir, you guys opened the way for me into the world of technology and I thank you.  I could not have had a better introduction and it paved a fairly successful career into that world.  Back then, I would not have expected it since I was a fine arts student who could barely work a typewriter.

Years passed and I was dragged kicking and screaming into the PC world.  I had to shoulder the weight of guilty betrayal and although I successfully masked my disdain, my heart was always with that little alleged fruit of Eden.

Even though I could no longer be touted a Mac user, in my heart I was still a die-hard Mac devotee.  So imgaine my horror when you guys succumbed to the other evil M.

I swear I never forgave you.  I understood why.  But the little art graduate geek was screaming in horror inside.

Thank you for the memories.  You might be ever lauded as the man who guided Apple into the age of glory when it revolutionised the way we compute and made PC users confused about the difference between them and us.

Honestly, I disagree but who am I?  I think you guided Apple into an age of commercial glory but somewhere along the way, the band of almost anarchistic creatives who led the way of true artistic and IT revolution were ... well, lost.

You were truly a genius but somehow I missed the old Apple.  But still I thank you because you gave me the most joy in working for a very long time.  In the insanity of the IT world, you were my beacon.  When I retired from the biz, I ran back to you guys with the breathless anticipation of a school-girl returned home for hols.

Instead, I found a Mac I did not recognise anymore.  And my beloved Mac was now more a mobile phone than my little arty security blanket.

I never got any of your i-whatevers.  I would rather hang on to my Classic II.

Which I miss dearly.  Just as you, Sir, will be missed.  For you were just as classic and the world will never be the same.

I pity your successors.  Already they have been scrambling and I wish that was not so.  Because your legacy is too precious and you worked too hard for them to fail you.  Essentially, you worked yourself to the grave and to many, your legacy may be a tiny handheld tool.  To me, the legacy was a culture and an identity.  I freaking loved being part of them and am glad I had more than a decade of that, even if it no longer exists.  

 I wish you a safe rest of the journey, dear Sir and thank you again.  See you on the other side.  And I promise not to harangue you for selling out.