Page 229 - The Apple Experience

subsequent openings. The cleaning crew must be the hardest-working team
at an Apple store!”

Why is Apple different? Apple cares about things other businesses don’t.

It cares about elegance, space, and simplicity. It cares about smudges. Most

people simply don’t care about this as much as Apple, and that’s the

difference.

There’s a restaurant near my office that is conveniently located and offers

a decent selection of everything from pizza to salads. It also has coffee, beer,
and wine. The problem is that it’s smelly, cluttered, and messy. The kitchen

has a passing grade from the health inspector, so I assume the food won’t

make me sick. But it leaves a bad impression for several reasons. First, the

glass is never clean. There are smudges all over the front windows, the dessert

tray, and even on the wine glass when I ordered a Chardonnay that was

served so lightly chilled it was almost room temperature. Second, it’s dusty.

The fake plants, coffee bean displays, and windowsills are coated with a
week’s (or longer) layer of dust. Third, it’s cluttered. The short walkway

separating the front of the restaurant from the back room where more tables

are located also acts as a storage closet. A diner has to maneuver past mops,

buckets, and empty boxes.

Finally, nobody cares, not even the owner (which explains everything). On

one occasion a large party of ten people had just left, and there were dirty

dishes and glasses covering a table in the middle of the room. Right next to

the table, the owner was meeting with a vendor, and I was close enough to

overhear the conversation. The owner was trying to get the vendor to shave a
few cents on takeout cups and packages, and he paid no attention to the mess

right next to him. Forty-five minutes went by before a server cleaned the

table. I sat there dumbfounded. The owner never called staff over, nor did he

take the opportunity to remind anyone about the need to keep the tables