the same thing

[unpakwon]

Please make the following in red clear for me.

Jobs would take a look at someone's work and declare it a pile of garbage, often using stronger language. Or he might say, "This is the greatest thing I've ever seen," Hertzfeld said. "The scary thing was that he'd say it about the same thing."

Is this saying "he'd say the worst thing and at the same time the best thing about the same thing"? Was he emotionally erratic?

Thank you?

[emsr2d2]

Please make the following in red clear for me.

Jobs would take a look at someone's work and declare it a pile of garbage, often using stronger language. Or he might say, "This is the greatest thing I've ever seen," Hertzfeld said. "The scary thing was that he'd say it about the same thing."

Is this saying "he'd say the worst thing and at the same time the best thing about the same thing"? Was he emotionally erratic?

Thank you?

I think you're right. They're saying that in one breath he might deem something "garbage" but then say that the very same thing is "the greatest thing he'd ever seen". I don't know about "emotionally erratic" but it certainly sounds as if he wasn't very consistent or predictable with his opinions.

[Barb_D]

I don't believe it was intended to say that he's look at something and in the same breath say it was brilliant and then say it was garbage. That would be emotionally untable.

I believe he would look at it at different times. The first time, for some reason, it struck him as brilliant, but later, as garbage. Or vice versa. So you never knew what he would think was good work and what he would think was poor.

[unpakwon]

Thank you all for the help.