Apple Store Experience

My son, Jason, is pursuing a career in 3-d animation. It was recommended he get a Mac for some of the software work. He decided on a MacBook Pro and we went off to the Apple Store.

Now first off, most of the people in there are too hip (or trying to be too hip) for their own good. A big of smugness when dealing with the general consumer. See this article in Geeks Are Sexy for the general smugness of the Mac User http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/01/19/mac-fans-were-stuck-up/.

Maybe it was a bad day, but the Apple store experience wasn’t the best. Now some of the people in the store have been very helpful in the past, but not today. First it was the aging hippie that waited on us. He really didn’t know (or shared his knowledge if he did know) much about the laptop, he just read from the little poster board and said, which one do you want? Then he wandered back, got the stuff, plopped in on the counternd said she’ll help you.

After about 5 minutes, the woman asked if we were being helped, we said he said you’d help, she said I’m in a training session. Let’s see now, a store with 3 spots for registers, all 3 being used by training sessions. How the hell do you buy something in the Apple #Store#? Finally, she starts to check us out and someone else comes and we get out of there.

Wait! It is the wrong screen, Jason goes trudging back to the store. After about 15 minutes I go back to see what’s happening. He is there waiting patiently while the laptop is swapped out. First the guy brought a 17 inch instead of the 15 inch (that would have been a score), then he had to redo all the paperwork for the student discount they did before. Finally we get out.

Jason said some guy made the comment about how are they supposed to sell stuff in the store? Are they victims of their own growth and are trying to get new customers trained and sell stuff? Don’t know, but it was a bit frustrating.

He is getting up to speed on the laptop. A Mac in the house, a sign of things changing.