Image from Vwag
John “J to the B” Brownlee had a problem with his brand new MacBook Pro’s SuperDrive. He put in a Samsung press disk (you can’t trust Samsung further than you can throw them, incidentally) and the probably bent a little gate that kept the disk from ejecting – but I doubt he did. In short, he had a constantly spinning CD in his drive he couldn’t get out.
He tried everything including, sadly, sticking a business card in to disengage the drive. He took it into the Apple Store and he made the fatal mistake of admitting he tried unorthodox methods of disk ejection. He writes:
“I have a disc that refuses to eject from my MacBook Pro’s SuperDrive. This is literally the first disc I’ve inserted into it since buying the computer a few weeks ago. I tried all the usual tricks, like booting up with the mouse button held, and even going into Open Firmware. It didn’t work, so I tried using a business card to hold down the gate mechanism, but that didn’t work either.”
You can probably guess at which sentence my Apple Genius’ face went stony. He asked if I minded waiting a minute, and went into the backroom to open up the case and look at the drive. A couple minutes later, he came back with my disgorged SuperDrive in hand.
I know this stony face quite well. I suspect that Genius Bar employees receive a slow drip of morphine during the day. An overseeing ear, connected directly to Steve Jobs army of winged monkeys, listens for suspicious problems including, but not limited to:
* DIY improvements
* Water Damage
* Jailbreaking
* Misuse of certain devices including jostling
When they hear evidence of this the morphine drip is shut off and the Genius Barista retreats to a place in his or her head where no reason or light can reach. There are a set of possible things to say and when you say the wrong one – any wrong one – they shut down.
Brownlee offers quite a few tips but my main tip is this: Act stupid. You don’t know anything about computers. You buy Apple products, after all. Go in, say “My computer is busted.” Have an iPhone problem? Restore the thing to the bare metal and walk in saying “I don’t know why I can’t make calls.”
One last, funny anecdote: My buddy bought an iPod Touche on eBay and found it was water damaged. He’s a handy fellow and tried to take them apart. He found that the water sensor was completely red so he covered over it with Wite Out, put the iPod together in a way that made it abundantly clear that someone had opened the damn thing, and took it to the Apple Store. They took the iPod back and gave him a brand new one, no questions asked. That’s right – although he had parts sticking out of the sides of the iPod, because he didn’t trip the water detector they were happy to take the thing back. It may not make sense, but in the alternate universe of Apple it makes perfect sense.
Sadly, I saw this same thing at my local Apple store. Seriously ladies, can you not feel the draft. Have some class!
“You don’t know anything about computers. You buy Apple products, after all.”
Oh, good Sir, I award you one Internets!
The iPod swap story reminds me of my own case where my iPod touch (1st gen) was stolen from my house. After getting no where with local police, I talked to Apple, found it was service exchanged at the local apple store 3 days after I went to that store with my serial #, looking for help tracking it down. Not only did the store not want my serial #, but they swapped out my old iPod (still registered to me) to someone else without collecting their information, nor writing down the serial # of the replacement unit, so the trail runs cold. I concluded that Apple stores are useful for laundering stolen equipment. Sad, but true.
I’d be happy to be a source for a story on this.. I think it is worth telling. I have dates/times/names written down.
@ Mike
Oh i believe she feels the draft but she thinks she has the package to show the backside and get some of those Apple boys looking her way. Maybe she’s looking for a boyfriend or something…
What utter crap. This clown jammed something into the slot and broke the drive. That’s his own fault, not Apple’s.
“You buy Apple products, after all.”
???
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html
Do you even know what Solaris is??? Maybe you played with IRIX in college? In an Enterprise environment people use UNIX, which is the underpinning of OS X. I know you’re trying to get clicks but its hard to read a story _IN 2009_ where someone is still naive and stupid about the Mac OS.
Someone didn’t take their anti-crazy pills!
Im leaving my name blank so my friend cant get fired by apple.
I have a best friend who is an apple genius. He tells me all the time about idiots like this one who get pissed off because they dont get their way. Most likely this guy isnt even telling the full story. I go and I watch the genius bar when ever I go in to see my friend. I watch as they help people with patience and a tone voice fix the apple products.
I love it when someone comes in with a water damage phone and trys to play stupid. The sensor tells it right there, they know you dropped it and that you got it wet. What you forget is these guys have the ability to over look that, but if your an ass to them then nope sorry no coverage. I dont blame them these guys get yelled at all the time and get treated like shit by some customers.
If you dont believe me go down to your appl store. Watch the bar, wait for someone to sit down and honestly have a problem. Then wait for the asshole and see how fast things will change, what was covered as an exception will no longer be covered because its the policy.
No where else in the industry can you walk in and get your computer fixed while you wait, or even within 5 days. Even best buys geek squad doesnt do repairs. They send them all to Kentucky where some shumk fixes it and you never even see them.