The Genius Bar Needs a Liquor License

Actually, what the Genius Bar really needs is for some "genius" to go back to the drawing board and come up with a system that has something to do with the nature of an Apple store in the year 2007.

Now, if you're one of those people who is going to intone some nasally version of "that's what you get for owning a Mac," here's a special message for you:  Shoo.  I'm not in the mood for it.

So, my husband gave me an iPhone for my birthday.  I haven't mentioned it because I've just been waiting for the Big iPhone Recall that I figured was sure to happen within the first couple of weeks, just so the "I Never Buy First Generation" crowd could strut and feel smug.  As far as I know, that hasn't happened.  And for the record, I love my iPhone.

At least, I loved it until a few days ago when I noticed that it had stopped ringing.  It was still working.  People were still calling me and if I happened to be staring at the phone at the exact time that they called me, there was no problem.  But, as much as I love my iPhone, I've gotten over the phase where I just sat and stared at it, so I was mising a lot of calls.

Not knowing what else to do, I took it to the Genius Bar.  Since I've had a recent experience or two at the Genius Bar, I booked an appointment a couple of days in advance.  Juli and I went in for my 3 p.m. appointment on Tuesday, her birthday.  Needless to say, she was not in a good mood about having to sit on a stool at the Genius Bar instead of shopping; but, I told her I was pretty sure I had just messed up a setting and we'd be out of there in five minutes.

And she was dumb enough to fall for that.

Unfortunately, so was I.  At any rate, we sat and waited.  And waited.  It was well after 3:30 before a "Genius" was ready to take me for my 3:00 appointment.  I explained the situation and told him I thought I'd messed up a setting.  I said, "I checked the "settings" on the screen and that's fine.  Is there any other way to silence the ring?"  The Genius said no.  Then he excused himself to go to the back room, to get out of the noise.  (Did I mention that there were 6,374 customers in the store?)  The Genius stayed gone.  Juli and I waited.  And waited.  I started to suspect that my iPhone might be an iLemon.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the Genius returned.  He confimed what I had already told him:  The phone was not making any sound when it rang.

I asked what he planned to do.  He ignored me.  He went over to one of the other Geniuses and I could hear them whisper.  My Genius said, "Have you ever had a problem where the sound is fine with the speaker but the phone doesn't ring?"  Genius #2 said, "No."  Not a good sign, I figured. 

My Genius returned.  He informed me that the problem could be solved by reinstalling my system.  Somehow he acquired this knowledge during his walk from Genius #2 to me, which was a span of about two feet.  Maybe an unseen Genius #3 had beamed it into his brain?  At any rate, my Genius suggested I take the phone home and reinstall the system and see if that worked.

I am not a Genius.  However, I am smart enough to know that if I drove home (about half an hour's drive) and reinstalled the system and the phone still didn't ring, I would be back at square one, and with no appointment for the next day.  So, I ventured to suggest to the Genius that he reinstall the system himself, right there are the Genius Bar, and show me that it was working.  And if it didn't work, then he could... I don't know, maybe come up with a Plan B while we were still sitting there?

So, the now disgrunted Genius reinstalled my system.  While we waited, I eavesdropped on some other Geniuses to see if I could learn something new about the Mac World.  I didn't.  I did learn that the Genius with the wacky S-shaped earrings the the tattoo of a bloody handprint on his arm recently broke up with his latest girlfriend because she was "too much work."  Apparently, as I understood it, she liked to go places and do things.  He and his (male) customer agreed that you should really only ever have to go on one "date."  After that, you either decide to be a couple or not, and if you do, it shouldn't cost you anything.

I was trying to wrap my non-genius brain around that logic when I noticed that my Genius was calling someone from the phone on the Genius Bar.  I wasn't sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one.  Then I realized that he was calling my broken cell phone, having finished reinstalling the system.  And my cell phone was... still not ringing.

I asked the Genius what we were going to do now.  He ignored me.  I asked again.  He said he was going to reinstall the system.  I said, "But you just did that, and it didn't work."  He said, "I'm going to try it again and see if it works this time."

Now...see...

Oh, what the hell.  He's the Genius.  So Juli and I waited (and waited) while he reinstalled the system again.  And yes, if you were wondering, the reinstalling of the sytem wiped out all of my contacts, photos, carefully selected ringtones, etc. etc.  But, according to the Genius, that was the only answer.

While the system was reinstalling again, my Genius went over to confer with Genius #2 again.  He explained what he'd done and that it hadn't worked.  Genius #2 shrugged.  By this time, Juli and I were getting nervous about getting home in time to dress for her birthday dinner.  So I asked my Genius what the plan was.  He explained the reinstall again.  It had just finished.  So he went to the phone and dialed my cell phone number.  Nothing.  He unplugged it from his system and handed it to me and told me it was fixed.  I said, "You just dialed it and it didn't ring."  He said, "Yeah, but now it vibrates."

Call me unreasonable, but... I said, "I don't want it to vibrate, I want it to actually ring."  He said, "Well, it wasn't even vibrating before."  Then he told me to take it home and fully recharge it, and maybe it would ring after that.

I was tired of my Genius by then, so I didn't explain to him that a phone that only rang when fully charged was not going to do me a lot of good.  I took my phone and left.

So this morning, I asked Chris if he would go with me to the Apple store.  Because, I said, "I've gotten to that point."  We've been married long enough to talk in that kind of shorthand.  He has heard the rant enough to know that "that point" means the point at which I realize that getting a particular problem solved requires a certain anatomical item that I do not possess.  And trust me, I did not come by this knowledge without putting up a big fight against it, and for a long time.  Also, I should mention that I could have solved this problem without a guy, but it would have taken at least two more visits to the Genius bar, all sorts of screeching that I didn't want to do, and probably one good round of tears.  I'm too old for the drama.  I took Chris to the Apple store.

He told the girl behind the counter what our problem was.  She told us that we should just hang out and a Genius would see us "probably within an hour."  Chris explained the situation again, stressing the fact that Juli and I had already put in an hour and a half to have the phone not fixed yesterday.  The girl behind the counter apologized, but explained that her hands were tied.  Chris told me to go shopping and he'd hang out and wait for a Genius.  I didn't have to be told twice. 

So I walked around and looked at ugly clothes for half an hour, then bought myself a Starbucks item and went back to the Apple store.  Chris was standing in front of it, waiting for me, with his own Genius story.

Somehow, a Genius had managed to work him in right away.  Chris told him the story.  The Genius examined the phone, checked the settings, etc. etc.  Then he told Chris that the problem was "obviously something complicated" and said he didn't have time to get into it right now.  But if Chris could come back in four hours...

At that point, Chris asked to see a manager.  Somehow, this resulted in an actual adult emerging from somewhere behind the Genius curtain.  Chris had explained the problem one more time.  The manager took one look at my phone and said "You see this little switch here?  That's how you silence the ring without going into the settings."  He flipped the little switch, and my phone was cured.

Now, if I hadn't immediately misplaced the little booklet that came with the phone, I probably would have read about the little switch and saved myself a lot of aggravation.  However, I'm not walking around in a black t-shirt that reads "Genius" in bold white letters. 

Here's the larger point:  the Genius Bar is an idea whose time has come and gone.  It was a good idea back when there were twenty people on the planet with Macs.  It became a bad idea as soon as the iPod was invented, because suddenly every single soul on the planet and their twelve year-old brother had a reason to be in line at the Genius Bar.  And now they have added iPhones to the mix, apparently before they had time to train the Geniuses in the most basic details.

If I ran the Apple world, the Genius bar would be staffed by people who were at least bright-ish.  And the Genius bar would be for people with computer problems, the way God intended.  Then there would be an iPod bar staffed by people of normal intelligence who could explain to customers that iPods don't work forever and sometimes it's time to buy a new one.  Or, failing that, they could put the iPods in envelopes and mail them somewhere to be tinkered with.

The iPhone people could share the line with the iPod people, but they should get preferential treatment, especially the ones who were either stupid or loyal enough to buy the first generation.

I would also make posters for behind the iPod/iPhone counter; the posters would say things like "Have you checked this little switch on the side."  And there would be a picture of the little switch on the side.  There would also be a few extra owners' manuals.

Or, as I said in the title, they could solve the entire mess without such drastic measures.  Cocktail peanuts and a beverage menu would go a long way.  Designer drinks with cute names.  Like the "Shoulda Boughta Dell" martini.

Comments

[turboderek]

apple pays "mac genius" less money now then they did 2-5 years ago. The quality of service sufferers. It is pretty sad first yourself and you wife missed the switch. But it's even worse that apple employee did not notice that right away.

[mac]

maybe if you were smart enough to realize what silent mode was you wouldnt have wasted the 'genius' time trying to fix a problem that never existed.

[Chris]

Sigh, women. Am I right? Eh?

[Jstaggie]

@mac

Yeah, she missed the switch. But for the "Genius" to miss it, go through 2 installs, and then claim it was "fixed" without identifying the cause is crappy service.
There's no excuse for any Genius Bar employee to not have checked the switch as part of the troubleshooting. And that's much worse than a customer who simply missed it and asked for help.

[CTNO]

Clearly we have two factors at play here.

First, the girl who thought her phone was broken is an idiot. Not because she didn't know about the switch, but because she made us believe this whole time that she was a victim of some sinister Apple plan to piss off customers. The genius is as big of an idiot as you. If you want instant service at the popular and busy genius bar, you need procare or something that gives you first-class access.

Second, the genius should have been given a new shirt marked DUNCE because if the genius doesn't know about the switch, he's instantly a bigger idiot than the poster.

[Chris]

I had to read through this twice just to make sure I understood, and now I do.
This is the biggest load of BS I've ever read. There is no way that this account could be real. It reads like a tale of the quite-literate pampered suburban housewife disgruntled that the Apple Store couldn't meet her needs right there on the spot.
I guarantee that many of the points here in this article are exaggerated, such as the amount of time waiting past the appointed time being thirty minutes. It's probably more like ten if it was late at all. And the ineptitude of the employees described here are simply hilarious to read, if completely unbelievable and certainly untrue.
Wake up babe, the world doesn't revolve around you. Get in line.

[Chris]

The geniuses are not very bright.

Recently I had to "schedule" a time to talk to someone about the $2k+ computer I bought several days ago and wait 2 days for the appointment arrived.

The "Genius" was 45 minutes because Apple obviously is more interested in the 15 year old who dropped $149 on a Nano than someone who dropped $2k on 1 computer (one of 4 purchased this year).

The "genius" bar is staffed by "geniuses" if you compare them to the regular Apple employee at the store. Now, they are Dumb. I bought an MacBook to give to a relative serving in Iraq so they could Video iChat with their kids. I could not convince little Miss Apple that the extnded warranty is of no use in a war zone. There are no Apple stores. She kept telling me it extends the phone support time. I repeated he was in Iraq, they can't call tech support lines.

She didn't know what Iraq was.

The genius bar needs to be used for real items that people spend real money, not iPods. If I want crappy service, I can buy a Dell for a lot mess money.

[Lisa]

First, the girl who thought her phone was broken is an idiot.

The "girl" here is a 51-year old woman.

[Karen]

And not an idiot. Just a little too busy to read my iPhone manual. And I would only have "wasted" the Genius' time for 20 seconds if the Genius hadn't been an idiot.

The account is absolutely real, including the time spent sitting on the stool. I do have ProCare, you do not go to the head of the class with ProCare in Orlando -- you line up with all the OTHER people who have ProCare.

I am QUITE aware that the world does not revolve around me. It revolves around my 18 year-old daughter.

Did I miss anything?

[Karen]

Oh yeah, to the "Sigh, women" dude. I'll play dueling CVs with you any day of any week. Whoever you are, other than male -- for which, unless you know something that I don't -- YOU don't get to take any credit.

[Joe]

Notice how I'm not saying a word?

-J.

[George]

"And yes, if you were wondering, the reinstalling of the sytem wiped out all of my contacts, photos, carefully selected ringtones, etc. etc."

Just a note, since you don't have time to read the simple manual, your iPhone is synced to your computer, so all your "wiped out contacts, photos, etc" are AUTOMATICALLY restored after reinstalling the system (reinstalling only requires only 1 button push in iTunes and about 5 minutes).

I feel for Mac Geniuses, there are MILLIONS of little issues to know about and they take 'em as they come.

[Mike]

PRAY for guidance!

[joke]

K.,

You couldn't have generated this much bandwidth consumption if you had posted that all the Jesuits had become heterophobic Marxist heretics!

-J.

[dead.stars]

Very early on I was tempted to "fast forward" to the end to see if the problem was solved with the flick of that switch. Reason being is that a co-worker of mine related a story where someone walked into our store with the same issue. He looked down at the phone (we are just the specialists...not the geniuses...heh heh), asked her if she had tried flicking the switch to the other position, demonstrated a ring, and she just hung her head. He did not mean it to sound so smart-ass and rather just matter of factly asked her the question, but she just smiled and said thanks. The story was quite funny, but I was glad he told me because I had the same issue with someone the very next week and we both were able to save the customer the pain described above.

BTW - we have plenty of "typical" affluent suburban hw as customers all day long...for the most part, they are VERY nice and exhibit little to no attitude at all. I think for the most part we have the best customers in retail.

[dennis]

Whiny spoiled pampered suburban wife.

It is ladies like this that make the world suck in general. The world rotates around their fat ass, SUV, talking on the phone while driving, drinking their starbucks asses.

Lady take your phone box it up return it get a razor. have your husband slap you for being an idiot. Apoloigize to your kids for being a moron and get a gun put it to your temple and hope to God that you were smart enough to put the bullets in...

Have a great day you whiny sow.

[Non Disclosure]

This account is truely outrageous, but I wouldn't say out of the question. I am a Mac Genius at an Apple Store and would disagree with a lot of the accusations listed. However, I would agree that sometimes mistakes are made as well. If the Genius team at that store acted as the story accounted it, then they did not do their job. I promise you, that is not the experience you would receive at my store. To start with we give iPhone customers preferental treatment...meaning, no reservation? no problem.

Now with that being said; if people would just use the resources that are quickly available to them then the Genius Bar's in the stores would not be that jam packed. Simple use apple.com/support and you will solve a majority of your issues. If after you have visited this resource and your situation is not resolved then by all means, make a reservation and come on in!

[joe]

Oh, THIS is going to end well.

-J.

[Bruno Dexter]

As an ex Apple Retail employee I've worked both sides of the bar. Your experience should not be tolerated.
Yes, the fix was an easy one (in the end), but this doesn't excuse the lack of knowledge the "genius" demonstrated.
Several facts:
1. Many store managers understaff so they can hit their metric, regardless of store experience.
2. Most "geniuses" are way underpaid. For comparision, as a mac consultant I bill anywhere between 50 and 125 dollars per hr. Most "geniuses" are lucky to pull down more than 15 per hour.
3. Working the bar is a high burn out position. Even if you are really good at your job (and really try to help the customer) you will still get yelled at daily and you will have to deal with both smart and (I hate to use the word) stupid customers. The smart ones believe they know much more than you and the less blessed will argue that dropping an iPod in a toilet should be covered under warranty.
4. The managers can be real buttheads. Many come from retail like the Gap or the like, but have no real computer knowledge and most are only fascinated by quarterly bonuses than the wonder of technology.

One piece of advice:
Email the store, customer relations, and Ron Johnson of Apple Retail. Call, write, and email! Complain until someone hears that there needs to be some housecleaning at Apple Retail.

Once again, I am sorry you had such a bad experience. On the upside yout iPhone works.

[Ed K]

You are a perfect example of the kind of customer that always complains about poor customer service. Do you really think the Genius (and you really hate that they are called that, people take their job title way too seriously) - a certified techninian that Apple spends thousands of dollars to train - missed the silent switch? I bet they are still having a good laugh at your expense. And losing the instruction guide is no excuse! The phone has a web browser, it is called Safari. You go to Apple.com, click support, click iPhone Support, and do a basic troubleshoot. You would have had your problem solved in minutes so as to allow the Genius to get on to real troubleshooting that they are trained to do.

[Karen]

Bruno: Thanks. I was starting to question whether or not I should switch to a Dell based on the personalities of Mac users hereby displayed.

I have had very good luck and been treated very well by Mac geniuses in the past, over the many years of being a Mac owner. I think I got a particularly bad genius, but as I said in my post, I also think Apple has a Genius Bar problem and needs to find a way to send the iPods elsewhere because everyone in America has one.

In my defense, the switch is very small and I have a cover on the phone (bought at the Mac store) that almost covers it, which is why I hadn't realized it was there. I really should have searched for the book or online, but it so happens that "spoiled suburban housewives" have a loooooong list of things to do everyday. That, and I happen to be a "spoiled housewife" with a high pressure job that eats up all the time that I don't spend at Starbucks or...what was the other thing? Oh yeah, sitting on my fat ass.

One more thing: suburban housewives work their fat asses off, doing the most important thing on the planet.

I think I'll stop there, unless Joe has anything to add.

[JAC]

Other buttons on the iPhone: Wake / Sleep ( on the top ); Home ( bottom center ).

Now, you can throw the booklet away.

[Earl Shalls]

I used to be a mac genius. I did it for several years. Yes I would make a mistake every now and then and miss diagnose something but i had a great crew that would make sure we ask cover the dumb questions before going to swapping out the ipod / iphone / checking in the machine for repair.

this just sounds like a team that didn't work together well. Yes apple changed the genius position and lowered the salary range so the talent has gone down and most really good mac techs make alot more and can work normal non retail hours and apple just can't compete.

[joe]

I'm kind of impressed with the restraint manifested...

-J.

[vaporland]

Genius Bar - more like the Geniurd Bar.

I had an iPod Shuffle suffer premature failure under warranty, and the Geniurd wanted me to buy an extended warranty (for the same price I originally paid for the Shuffle) just to look at it right away.

I said "It's under warranty, can't I just drop it off and come back, it's broken, it died, I WANT A NEW REPLACEMENT ONE".

No go - without an appointment, no can do, so I threw it away...

I like Apple stuff, but the Apple Stores and the Geniurds suck...