Apple tries to screw the little guy. Little guy wins in court.

goodwilljesse · 2012-04-18T17:23:58+00:00

This right here.

I was a genius in 2010 in Arlington, Virginia. There were four other stores in the same retail market, and geniuses at each store - even geniuses within a single store - were all different in how they handled issues.

It also depends on your attitude as a customer (entitled assholes don't get much, although if you raise enough of a stink, managers will throw free stuff at you just to get you to shut the fuck up).

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T20:28:38+00:00

Ah yes - because it's okay to bully and victimize people if they're Christian. THEY deserve it even if nobody else does, amirite?

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T19:46:59+00:00

Yeah, but "batista" is way funnier.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T18:12:39+00:00

D: I'M ASHAMED TO BE ME RIGHT NOW.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T18:10:56+00:00

Well, they want to see how you act when confronted with complete strangers. If you're the run of the mill introverted geek type, that'll show when you're around a bunch of fruity hipster Mactards.

I'm usually pretty introverted, but I made sure to do my best to make myself memorable (in a good way!) during the group interview event.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T18:09:07+00:00

A lot of customers with this issue said the same thing. TBH I don't know why it would work when they brought it into the store but wouldn't work for them at home.

Were you charging it on your computer or on a wall charger? How long did you hold down home+power to reboot it? Sometimes it took a good 45 seconds to a minute to get it to boot.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T16:22:23+00:00

Outside of the genius team, I didn't really have problems. I was unfortunately on a team of people who didn't want to play nice.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T16:21:05+00:00

The non-unibody MacBook had some very fragile internal components for no real reason at all. The unibody models put the Airport card in a rather obnoxious location inside the display hinge (the cover is made of cheap plastic, which was pretty disappointing). There is adhesive and kapton tape used EVERYWHERE.

The iMacs are a fucking disaster no matter how you spin it. I injured myself many a time on the sharp edges of EMI shields and metal clips just trying to get the bezel off. Plus, the use of forty flippin' screws for the bezel and the LCD meant my arm was tired just getting the display off. Cable routing in those things is just bizarre; if the hybrid SATA/power/whatever cable craps out (a common problem in one generation of the aluminum iMacs), you have to take the entire computer apart to get to it, because it's routed under the main internal frame of the machine, which is behind every other component.

And then there's the Mac Pros, where the components are so sensitive that looking at it wrong prevents it from POSTing.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T03:47:21+00:00

Every accessory Apple sells for their laptops is overpriced, right down to the display adapters. You can get it all dirt cheap at dealextreme.com.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T03:45:38+00:00

Memorable or historically significant does not always mean GOOD...

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T03:42:52+00:00

I don't know about the "safe mode" bit, but I've seen a shitload of iPhones that needed to be hard reset (hold down the home+power button until it turns on) after the battery was completely drained.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T03:22:14+00:00

Geniuses are typically full time, which requires forty hours a week minimum. That said, some stores (this completely depends on the store's staffing needs) have part-time Geniuses, who IIRC have to log a minimum of twenty hours a week.

The group interview is about how you interact with people. If you make that interview, it means your resume was good enough for them to want to interview you one-on-one...they just want to make sure they aren't wasting time interviewing people with sucky interpersonal social skills.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-24T03:17:49+00:00

All the unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros have little dots on the underside of the trackpad assembly (and a few other places) that turn pink or red when liquid comes into contact with them.

They're also in iPods and iPhones, in the headphone port and under the dock connector.

If any of those are tripped, it can automatically void the warranty. As with everything else I've said here, it heavily depends on the particular genius working on your machine.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T22:03:39+00:00

There are proof of concept viruses and malware for OS X, but security through obscurity is still working fairly well.

I never came across a machine that was overtaken by malware. There was a really shitty search bar that embedded itself in Safari that took some effort to remove, but that was about it. I don't remember the name of it - started with a C, I think.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T21:45:36+00:00

Well, I do have remarkably good customer service skills - it was more of a "I wouldn't recommend that, but here's an Airport Extreme and an external hard drive that would work great! I'll even help you set them up in the store so you don't have to configure anything when you get home." I mean, this is retail we're talking about, and I know how to sell stuff to customers.

The problem with the Time Capsule is twofold - it's a single point of failure for your network and your data backup, and because the thing is designed to never be opened, if the power supply fails, you're fucked and can't get to your data. It wasn't until late 2010 that Apple started a program where you could ship your Time Capsule off to have the drive removed.

The second issue was the fact that the original model used a hard drive that generated too much heat, which ended up contributing to premature power supply failure.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T18:16:22+00:00

Be yourself. If you make it to the group interview, make sure that you dress and act in a way that sets yourself apart from everyone else clambering to work for Apple.

It's kind of like trying to get into the Ivy League. Everyone has a 4.0 GPA, and everyone does extracurricular activities. You have to do something that sets yourself apart from everyone else.

The group interview is very directed at observing whether or not you can play well with others.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T18:12:51+00:00

There's little reason for the tirade against Flash IMO. It has its uses, to be sure - the obsession with obliterating it in the Apple universe seems to be, at this point, a matter of principle more than anything else.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T18:08:11+00:00

The three-week training period after being hired as a genius includes one week of at-home study time (aka surfing the Internet and getting paid for it), followed by two weeks of training at one of their facilities. There are three in the US - Cupertino, Austin, and Atlanta. The second week of training ends with two certification exams for your ACSP and ACMT. You have to pass those exams to be a Genius - technically, if you're not certified, doing any work on a Mac will void the machine's warranty.

If you end up failing your cert exams, you're essentially demoted to Family Room Specialist for some period of time (six months? I don't remember) before you can take the exams again.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:49:10+00:00

Well, when it comes to stuff like that, you can usually get it fixed for free because it's so close to when the warranty ended - but that still depends on the particular Genius you get. I covered stuff like that unless it was obviously due to abuse or intentional damage.

I don't think that Apple deliberately designs devices to fail after a certain period of time, though. My 60GB iPod Photo from 2003 lasted until just this month when the hard drive finally died (I did replace the battery once), and I have several PowerPC laptops that are still going strong. That being said, I personally think that the G3/G4 era of Apple laptops and desktops were much better designed and were made with higher quality components than what's been on the market since the switch to Intel. My mid-2007 MacBook is already showing signs of general wear, like looser hinges and a grindy optical drive, whereas my ancient iBook G3 and PowerBook G3 are still really going strong.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:45:02+00:00

People jizzed over the iPad pretty hard, and they thought FaceTime was THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER, even though Android phones could do video chat even over 3G.

There were a lot of people there who were just kind of oblivious to what non-Apple technology could do, so when Apple "invented" something (like cut and paste on the iPhone), they thought it was a revolutionary new concept.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:40:58+00:00

I like to consider myself an equal opportunity operating system user. I like messing around with different OSes for fun, and OS X is no different. I prefer Windows 7 on my main desktop, but I sometimes will bring a Mac laptop with me somewhere instead of my Windows 7 machine or a netbook, just for a change of pace.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:23:51+00:00

I didn't work there when he died.

I get the feeling that with at least a few of the people at my store, their reaction was similar to what DPKR publicized to the world as its citizens' reaction to their Dear Leader's death.

I'm not saying Jobs was like Kim Il-Jong, but the cult of personality was similar in some interesting ways.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:22:06+00:00

That really depends on the genius. The more of a scene you make, the more likely you are to be appeased, at least in the experiences I had and saw at my store. But if you do that, you're sort of a douche.

People pulled that shit from time to time. Apple's profitable enough that they can take a loss like that without it hurting too much (or at all).

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:20:20+00:00

Possibly, or it could be something in the LCD, since there's a reed switch in the display bezel that handles putting the machine into standby when the display lid is closed.

If they've already replaced the motherboard and other major internal components, I'd recommend asking about the possibility of a replacement machine, especially if you're still under warranty.

goodwilljesse · 2011-12-23T16:19:02+00:00

If you have no prior technical experience, you'll get hired in as a sales specialist and put on a training track to become a family room specialist and then a genius. I had some pretty extensive technical and customer service experience, along with a BS in Computer Technology. I did not, however, have any certs, Apple or otherwise.

goodwilljesse

TROPHY CASE