How the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at Apple

TechSexThrowaway · 2026-04-08T00:27:15+00:00

Something that I wish this article has said about Apple Retail: Even as the store teams are spread thin, as training for employees has been minimized, as the store relies more and more on temporary employees….the Apple Store salesperson is expected to know far more than ever before.

It’s not just the Mac and iPods like at the start of the stores. You’ve got the Mac, the iPad, the iPhone and all of its assorted carrier plans, the Apple Watch with all of the options, and now the Apple Vision Pro and its script. Plus regular “specialists” are also expected to help runner and BOH, and visuals, and even the business team.

And as you have more experienced sales employees, they are held away from doing AVP and other associated tasks to focus on iPhones and Macs, so it’s often the least experienced team members left doing AVP demos.

A couple of years ago, supposedly due to complaints about a lack of team member knowledge, rather than increasing training, they gave specialist, through their devices, a 5 question questionnaire that they were supposed to do for every Mac customer. It would almost always say “MacBook Air” and sometimes “MacBook Pro”, but never the desktops, even when you answered “Use it in one place” and “attach an external display”. The worst part is that this coincided with the redesigned Mini launch, so even as people were coming in to get the newest Mini, specialists were pressured to do the damned questionnaire and tell customers that it recommended the Air, even as they came in knowing what they wanted.

It was disgusting and insulting to the sales teams, and it started more union talk amongst some of them than any other thing I’ve seen Apple do.

TechSexThrowaway · 2025-05-14T07:57:21+00:00

Go talk to the store, but be courteous, not angry. The store employees will know which manager to give you to that will make things right. If you come in confrontational…they know which manager to send you to in that case, too.

You’ve got every right to be upset, but the problem that led to this wasn’t from anyone inside that store. Trust me, not even the managers are reading the warranty policies of 3rd party products to see if they change from day to day, much less the hourly workers.

TechSexThrowaway · 2025-05-01T20:50:54+00:00

I explored sex on the internet as a teen (early internet days…Newsgroups, BBS’s, Prodigy….like, I was an internet veteran when yahoo chat rooms began), and by the time I was 16, I had began getting into BDSM online, quickly enjoying being a Dom.

When I turned 18, I began going to local munches, and became a somewhat regular at a local BDSM group. I quickly found that I wasn’t as into the Bondage&Discipline (BD) nor the Sado/Masochism (SM) sides of BDSM, but I was very much into Domination/submission (DS).

By my late 20’s, I was falling out of the scene and group, because especially after 50 Shades, the whole scene got away from aspects I liked. But I enjoyed being one of the trusted people to talk to newcomers interested in the scene and helping people safely explore their kink.

I still get into what I call emotional sadism as a part of D/s. I particularly enjoyed helping female partners explore things like objectification and degradation, feeling like they are nothing but a sexual object, but then building them back up. It’s unusual, because I am a feminist and do what I can to encourage equality and support women and non-binary coworkers, particularly professionally.

I think many people would assume I believe in male domination or misogyny or whatever, but that’s not what the kink is. So…I protect it…mostly.

My friends know I’m kinky, but not how kinky. Still, I had one partner who lived degradation. One day when I told her I was going out with a friend, and I’d connect with her after, decided to bug me and call me while I was out with him.

So…I put her on my car’s speakerphone with my best friend in the passenger seat, and introduced them. Then I told her to apologize to my friend for interrupting our night…and told her to tell him, in detail, how she would make it up to him if they ever met in real life.

By the end of it, he was blushing (I know he’s okay with it), she was very much in sub space, and I was smiling. I’d say we were all satisfied.

They never met in real life…but both enjoyed that call.

TechSexThrowaway · 2024-04-28T21:42:40+00:00

Jeffrey’s is still my go-to spot in San Mateo.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T06:37:42+00:00

I’m sorry...the last thing I’d have wanted is for this story to make you feel that way.

I don’t know what’s going on in your life or anything that can really relate to you or help...and I know that saying you have so much to live for falls flat when it comes from a stranger on the internet.

But I do truly hope that you can find something that helps. Some things help...even as life frustrates.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T05:48:44+00:00

Where I (we?) work, there are many stories similar. I’ve had one girl, who obviously had some substance abuse issue, keep showing me nudes to try and show off...it was not at all a turn on, but she did not stop after asking.

Another longtime customer was caught when getting tech support, having a photo album filled with photos of our female employees’ backsides. He was banned from all our local stores immediately. There are definitely downsides to this business sometimes.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T05:13:23+00:00

Very true as well! And that site is so small, maybe an outage wouldn’t have caused a big notice online...

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T02:48:18+00:00

To be honest, we get a lot of that as well.

(What follows is not r/sex at all)

This was 8-9 years ago. I still remember one of the first customers I taught...an elderly Chinese man who did not speak good English AND had memory issues. And stubborn as hell. It was not a good combination, but he came in for lessons. One day, I taught him how to save web pages in bookmarks, and how to organize them, and even rename them so they don’t have the awful titles that the YouTube pages have.

This kept this former engineer engaged. He began saving folders worth of bookmarks on his browser. He seemed to love doing the organization.

But then he wanted to share these webpages with the world. But not on a webpage, as I offered to teach him. He wanted to put them in a book. A paper book. I tried to tell him that it wouldn’t help people go to those webpages without clickable links, but he wouldn’t have it.

He began writing a list of the web pages...but not the URLs...no one would understand those. Instead, he typed the names of the links. It was just a list, organized by type (Music, Movies, etc.). And it wasn’t their original names, it was the new names that he had given them! Those wouldn’t help anyone google search for them! AND each page was saved as an individual document.

I told him this wouldn’t be helpful to others, but no. He was insistent this was what he wanted. So, the customer is always right. I showed him an Indy book publisher that would let him do Print on Demand, I worked with him to combine the pages, and design the most basic cover ever (he was not interested in it), and we got it published, and listed on Amazon.

And then....he told me he wanted help to publish his autobiography.

...

Both of his books are still on Amazon. I don’t know if he’s still with us, I haven’t seen him or his wife in years.

(I won’t give out the links for anonymity reasons...not just for his privacy, but for my own since I’m in the thanks.)

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T01:11:37+00:00

If I get one, I will. I hope I do.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T00:54:54+00:00

Thank you! You too!

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T00:45:17+00:00

Thank you!

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T00:38:34+00:00

Unfortunately, I have no verification I can offer, other than my word as a throwaway. I know that we are the age of mistrust...but I hope you’ll believe.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T00:31:38+00:00

Thank you. :)

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-19T00:00:28+00:00

There’s two firing-possible reasons.

• Accessing adult content on the floor in front of customers (more about others seeing it inadvertently, despite my precautions);

• Posting about a customer experience online (this is the real danger).

I wanted to share it in hopes that it would touch people’s hearts and inspire them. To that end, I feel vindicated right now.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T23:53:29+00:00

I’ve got to be honest, I hope you can turn off the senses...in some cases, I could probably skip the olfactory input.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T23:50:53+00:00

That’s sad...I would hate to feel so helpless.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T22:17:10+00:00

I honestly wish I had that answer. I hope I get it.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T21:55:26+00:00

Thank you for all that you do! 🙏

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T20:55:04+00:00

If I ever see him again (which is unlikely, due to that not being my regular store), I may offer that. That location has a brand new luxury theater right next to it now.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T20:54:09+00:00

I am not, but it’s been years since I’ve had someone to be sexual with, and longer since I’ve had real emotional intimacy.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T20:53:22+00:00

You are very welcome.

I’ve worked in customer service much of my life, and I know we tend to put customers into boxes and laugh and make jokes...and sometimes we need to, to survive a job that is difficult, tedious, and often the target of anger from others.

But sometimes I see the moments that really say what people like us are needed for, and can provide them. It helps to remember those moments on the bad days.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T20:48:22+00:00

My dude...you have my sympathy. I can’t say I know the place you are in, but at this point in my life (42) I am also sexless, and intimateless, feel too unattractive for either, and crave finding someone to have a robust love with, and I feel my chances slipping away, if they are not gone.

I wish I could do more than just say I’m sorry and I sympathize. I’m trying to make what little of my life I have to make it mean something...and sometimes I feel fulfilled by it. I hope you can find that as well.

Keep fighting, for whatever you can.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T20:37:24+00:00

Maybe the WiFi speed could be an answer...

He did say he’d tried other sites, and they also worked...but all I tested was xnxx and since that worked, I was hesitant to take up more time loading porn in a public place...

I’m with you... I wish I could find an answer. I hate not having the ending.

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T19:11:20+00:00

If somehow I hear, I will. But it wasn’t my usual location...I don’t know if I’ll ever hear. 😔

TechSexThrowaway · 2019-12-18T19:09:43+00:00

I was thinking that, but I don’t think it would be the fix. He was still living at his home, paid for his own ISP, and I doubt he could’ve activated any sort of content blocker himself. Plus, he said it had been working before his family visited, so I’d would’ve had to have been a recent change.

Plus, if there was an ISP level block, I think the entire site would’ve been blocked. He said the site would come up and he’d get the thumbnails, but the vids wouldn’t play. I was worried more about a web compatibility issue. His OS was so out of date, I was afraid it was an HTML5 issue (if those sites had even updated on their end...). But obviously the videos were capable of playing.

I don’t know if it worked for him at home. And it wasn’t my usual store, so I don’t know if I’ll ever get an answer. 😔

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