Bad Apple

A little while ago, good friend of mine and I went to the Georgetown Apple store during our lunch break.  My friend was super excited to finally get her baby back - a 17.5" Mac Book Pro, with all her files on.  There had been a problem with some faulty chips, but they were going to replace them, plus the m/otherboard, for free.  Great!

So we catch the bus to Georgetown, and are both excited to be out of the office at lunch.  We stroll into the store, and one of the greeters sends us back to the "genius bar" - I find Apple so damn pretentious sometimes - and we are greeted by a surly college-aged kid, who has possibly realized that working at the Apple store over the holidays was an unwise decision.

My friend explains her computer is ready, he checks her name on the list, and explains that they have a different first name associated with the repair.  My friend clarifies that the computer was purchased by her mother, and that that would be her mother's name.  Kid replies: well do you have any ID with that name on you?  Now, logically, since she has just said this is her mother's name, A) if she did, would it be right to hand her the computer? And B) nobody carries their parents IDs around - but most of us can forge a signature on demand.


After he decides he can accept her word (and own ID) that yes, it is her computer, he trundles off to the back to get it.  He brings it out to us at the counter, pushes it towards her asking her to turn it on and check to make sure its ok, and then pulls out the invoice, which says Balance Due $982.16 at the bottom.  He then says, "there appears to be a thing here."  When we look at him blankly, he clarifies: "there appears to be a thing associated with the repair." My friend exceedingly politely points to instructions on the invoice that indicate she is not to be changed for the repair.  Kid is very flustered, tells us he has to speak to a manager, and snatches up the computer and walks away.  My friend has not even have the chance yet to verify the computer works, and this kid brings it with him like she's going to steal it?  And then he keeps leaving it in random places around the store, so we feel obligated to watch him to make sure noone else decides they'd like to steal it.

After 10 minutes of this nonsense, he brings back the computer, plus the old invoice with a receipt stapled to the back.  Again gives her the computer, and the invoice, and asks her to sign at the bottom.  This makes me very nervous, as the invoice still says $982.16 at the bottom, so I flip it over to check out what it says on the random receipt.  And the receipt on the back has a large voided item for the repair, but the balance due is still $10.

So we ask him about it.  Our conversation:

Us: What is this receipt?  Why is there still a balance due?
Him: Don't worry about it.
Us: Umm, no really what is this $10 about?
Him, now angry:  I said, don't worry about it.  It's for me.

At this point, my friend has still not managed to turn on the computer, but she has signed the invoice, so he snatches it away and puts it into a filing cabinet into the wall.  We stare at eachother, a bit stunned, and watch this guy just saunter away.  At which point we flag down the nearest staffmember and ask if they have a form we can fill out to give customer satisfaction feedback.

That produced immediate effect, but only on the two staffmembers who had been near us but not helping us...to their credit, they jumped on the fact that we were clearly unhappy and did their best to offer anything they could think of to deter us from sending the manager negative feedback.

But the piece de resistance: Chris becomes aware of the hubub, and comes over to have an additional conversation with my friend.  You would think this would be to make an effort to apologize.  You would be wrong.

Chris:  The $10 on the receipt is because I am only allowed to void 99% of a line item cost.  So I had the $10 leftover.
My friend:  Thank you - but you didn't have to be quite so rude about it before.
Chris: I wasn't being rude.
My friend: You definitely were.
Chris (the rest of this conversation is approximate, but he truly uttered these exact words):  Well whatever, I don't care.  We're worth like billions of dollars.

At which point he walked away, and my friend penned a brilliant letter of complaint to his manager that wasn't nearly as harsh as the one I would have written.

I have no words/typing of random letters to explain the indignant noises both of us were making on the bus back to our office, but we must have a sounded like a pair of drunk hippos.

But if you ever go to the Apple store in Georgetown, try to steer clear of Chris, because he will do his best to ruin your day.  Or at least your lunch break.