I dropped my iPhone and shattered the display, not bad
enough to put the phone out of commission, but enough to be annoying. My wife
told me the display could be replaced at the Apple store on State Street, a
suggestion I resisted at first because the thought of a visit to the Apple
Store was sure to be annoying. Now, don’t get me wrong – Apple designs fine
products of which I own three: iPhone, iPad, and Macbook Air. What annoys me
about the Apple Store is that it reminds me of a cult. Young kids in black
t-shirts or polos, Apple logo stitched above their hearts, running around,
iPads at the ready, helping hapless middle-aged folks navigate their iPhone
6’s. There is an attitude of superiority among the denizens of Apple that I
find off-putting. I have similar feelings about the hucksters who work in the
Verizon Wireless store, a place I never exit without feeling like I have been
violated.
I walked in and was set upon in less than ten seconds by a
young lady who offered to lead me to the “genius bar” for assistance. I stood
in line until another young kid, this one using an iPad to record information,
asked me what sort of help I needed. I showed him my phone, the spidery cracks
in the display. I asked him if it was repairable and he assured me it was. Then
he took my vital information – name, phone number, e-mail address – tapping the
data into the iPad, and told me to return in an hour and twenty minutes. He
informed me that I would be receiving three text messages in the next hour or
so.
I walked back home, past the County Courthouse where a wedding
was taking place, bride and groom poised to take the grand plunge.
As promised, I received three text messages, the last of
which summoned me back to the Apple Store. Once again I was escorted to a line
where the same kid was checking customers in. He directed me to sit at a square
table in front the genius bar where someone would assist me in just a few
minutes. I sat on a black stool with my damaged iPhone on the table in front of
me. Employees buzzed around, disappearing through a door behind the genius bar,
then reappearing; nobody made eye contact with me. An ad for the iWatch played
on a screen. Bored after five minutes of waiting, I got up to browse some
accessories on the wall, leaving my phone on the table. I wasn’t away from the
table more than 60 seconds, but when I turned from the wall my phone was
nowhere to be seen. A security guard had swept it up and was walking away with
it. “Hey man,” I said, “whoa now, can I have my phone back?” The security guard
handed it over without a word.
I went back to sit at the table. Another ten minutes passed.
Finally a young man came over and shook my hand and said he would be helping
me. “Cracked display, right?” I nodded. “Well, let’s see if we can do something
about it,” he said. He asked me to pull the protective case off. When I did he
said, “Oh, yeah, this is a 4S, the display can’t be replaced.”
“Why didn’t someone tell me that when I walked in here an
hour and a half ago?” I asked.
“I dunno, sorry.”
“Me too,” I said.
I slipped my cracked phone back into its case and left the
store, muttering to myself about the overuse of the word “genius.”
The irony of this tale is that the day after I dropped my
phone, my wife dropped hers and cracked the display…
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