Monday, September 07, 2015

Belly Up to the Genius Bar

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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