The Worst Apple Store In America — An Employee Confession 310
Cutting_Crew writes "Gizmodo has a piece that describes one of the worst and most corrupt Apple stores. Two employees recount management exchanging brand new computers for face-lifts (and other things), not just from customers, but also from businesses. Other common activities ranged from destroying devices repeatedly and ringing up new ones (for themselves and friends as fake customers) to outright stealing merchandise and cash. Customers may have also lost their data if they weren't polite when coming in for a repair, or the 'Genius' help may have been intoxicated."
Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple events (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider the source always. This is not the first hack piece written by them. They were caught knowingly purchasing stolen goods but got off on the technicality of being part of the "press". It is not supposed to be a license to get out of jail.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly, how credible is this source and the source that they are quoting?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:3, Insightful)
They were caught knowingly purchasing stolen goods but got off on the technicality of being part of the "press". It is not supposed to be a license to get out of jail.
Actually, being a member of the press is supposed to help you stay out of jail.
Even judges think so, otherwise we'd be locking up every journalist that published classified documents.
I think your understanding of the First Amendment needs refreshing.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:0, Insightful)
Consider the source always. This is not the first hack piece written by them. They were caught knowingly purchasing stolen goods but got off on the technicality of being part of the "press". It is not supposed to be a license to get out of jail.
Sound advice, I'll start by considering you, aristotle-dude.
Who are you, and do you work for Apple?
THIS IS NOT NEWS! (Score:4, Insightful)
People steal from work! News at 11!
This is what infidelity insurance is for!
The price of ignorance... (Score:1, Insightful)
'Customers may have also lost their data if they weren't polite when coming in for a repair, or the 'Genius' help may have been intoxicated."'
Sorry but this ranks right up there with having gf or self porn copied off your systems. Should the tech be doing this stuff? Of course not. That doesn't mean you shouldn't own your own responsibility for your bad attitude or incompetence. This is no different than getting spit in your food if you are the ass who shows up 5 mins before closing or you condescend to the people making your food.
Sorry, if you want to be dick, snarky, or a condescending prick you deserve what karma serves you.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:4, Insightful)
The first amendment was never intended to be license for just any misbehavior or licentiousness or criminal misdeeds. It's protection specifically, with regard to the press, protects them from prosecution for things they say or print. It doesn't permit them to lie, cheat, and steal... by which I mean they cannot perjure themselves, commit fraud, or commit larceny with impunity. Freedom of the press is not a blanket permit to do whatever they feel like.
Scandalous (Score:3, Insightful)
The gluttony. The vanity. The greed. The envy. The fear. The partying. The debauchery. The sex. The humanity.
We have it all.
Apple geniuses.
---
How is that for a commercial?
Re:I love Apple and I believe it (Score:2, Insightful)
I love Apple
Lol. I'm sure Apple loves you too...
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't permit them to lie, cheat, and steal... by which I mean they cannot perjure themselves, commit fraud, or commit larceny with impunity. Freedom of the press is not a blanket permit to do whatever they feel like.
As far as I know it is not illegal to lie. Making lies illegal would cause a problem as soon as two stories differ from each other, for example when the government says one thing and the press another. Since the government controls the law they can pretty much conclude that the official story is the truth and say that anyone who claims that the official story is false is a liar.
Re:My Experience (Score:0, Insightful)
Me too!
Re:I love Apple and I believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, it does raise questions as to what the fuck the point is in Apple's extremely rigorous and invasive recruitment process such as multiple credit checks etc. though.
If they go to such extremes when hiring but can still get away with the excuse that "Well, this happens in any store", then maybe they could at least stop subjecting potential employees to such an awkward recruitment process, or at least stop pretending the recruitment process in any way improves the quality of employee they hire in their stores.
Re:I love Apple and I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
the arduous hiring process is actually part of the new employee's conditioning, not really a screening mechanism at all.
making them feel like the accomplished something simply by being hired is an important early step in the corporate mandated mental manipulation.
notice the quote in the article from the disgruntled employee:
"...statistically speaking, it's harder to get a job at the Apple Store than it is to get into some Ivy League schools," he says
This isn't something he just came up with. It's a "fact" he was taught during the indoctrination process, designed to make the iPeons feel like they are somehow special for obtaining a low paying position in retail.
as you pointed out, it's largely ineffective at preventing crappy people from being hired, but that's not what its about.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh yes, "we" are the reason other people have no morals or ethics.
Some people always try to find a way to blame the "fanboys"...
The only people to blame here are those engaging in the acts mentioned.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:1, Insightful)
My gripe with them and folks like them is they don't learn. If they were part of righteous cause or something I could understand but their publishing a blog about Apple products for crying out loud.
After the whole missing iPhone incident and now a string of others you'd think they'd have the sense to say "whew barely got out of that scrape" and move on. Lots of parties are not really happy with the way things shook out. Apple, certainly isn't, local law enforcement likely not, and probably others. Apple controls more dollars than most nation states and as we all know law enforcement has a huge tool box with which to harass folks they are not found of. Even if you are on each others enemies list, you really should want to stay off their radar.
Not saying Gizmodo needs to get out of Dodge or anything like that but they really really should avoid doing things like publishing this that only serve to rub salt in the wounds of the 800lb gorilla.
Its not as if this is a story that needed to be brought to light. Its no secret that low wage retail employees tend to engage in this type of behavior. The only way you could not know if you have never so much as spoken to any who has ever worked retail at any point in their lives!
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The price of ignorance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, if you want to be dick, snarky, or a condescending prick you deserve what karma serves you.
Sorry, you only have the options to take my money or not, you don't have the option to fradulently offer but not deliver goods or services.
Re:The price of ignorance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Willful destruction of data is illegal in the UK. I don't care much of a cock I am to someone in a store, they break the law if they delete the data off my hard drive.
This is no different than getting spit in your food
You may think that's acceptable. I do not. I've worked in a restaurant and I'd expect any member of staff to get sacked if they tried that.
There are excellent ways of dealing with difficult, rude or tardy customers. Breaking the law and illegally abusing them are not excellent ways.
Don't be a cock.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly the kind of story that a blog about Apple should be covering. You may be questioning whether journalists should be covering Apple but given the high level of public interest I don't see any reason they shouldn't be covered.
As for intimidation. Every small town newspaper publishes stuff that the mayor or the police chief doesn't like. Everyday journalists covering the national story go up against big corporations and government officials with tremendous power and budget. Go abroad and their are journalists in China reporting on abuses who get sent to forced labor. There were journalists in Egypt that got taken in by government forces and shot.
No Gizmodo shouldn't back down because Apple is unhappy.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't believe how far up your ass the late Steve Job's cock still is.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:4, Insightful)
Awesome. That kind of attitude potentially bolsters a source's credibility. It's easy to be critical of those we despise; being critical of those we adore is a hallmark of introspection.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, swoosh with your comprehension skils and those that modded you insightful. He said the reason you are "reading" about them and the article, not that you agree or disagree with the content of the article or someones doings. Gizmodo posts a non story, fan boys all read it and get excited about it and discuss it. Gizmodo will repeat these type of non stories because you the fan boy will read it and get excited about it again and again.
If this same story was posted about a local 7-Eleven store, no one would give a shit, no one would read, and no one would comment on it.
Re:THIS IS NOT NEWS! (Score:4, Insightful)
I love this day in age where someone thinks loading something on youtube is the ultimate stopping power.
In my day, if you did something like that to an employee, we would light your car on fire.
"What's the difference between a wage slave and a convicted thief?"
I'm sure you ar a pleasure to work for.
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:2, Insightful)
Or that Apple figured out that the vast majority of its customers (i.e., not you) don't really do stuff that requires user-servicability?
I mean, I'm pretty sure most car owners don't service their cars - the hood could be welded shut for all they care - they'll take it in for service when it needs it, they'll go to the oil change place to change the oil. They'll take it to Costco to change their tires (or a tire-change place). All operations they could do themselves, but don't. The only "maintenance" they seem to do is put gas in it.
Apple saw the same. What's the point of offering a memory slot if the majority of people buying it never change it out? SUre they COULD do it, but they don't bother (doesn't help that when it comes time to upgrade, adding more memory to a depreciated laptop (especially when it's older memory and more expensive) makes little sense).
Same with hard drives - at best they'll simply get an external USB drive and be done with it - they won't actually bother doing an internal drive upgrade.
Ditto batteries - by the time the battery wears out, your laptop's usually 2 years old. You're lucky to be able to find ANY replacement battery for it - other than perhaps "new old stock" ones which may be dead to begin with (Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries age - after a couple of years, if the low battery protection circuit hasn't disabled the battery, it's probalby not going to hold as much charge either).
In the end, those who clamor for upgrades are extremely few. The rest seem content with getting a new laptop. And with the way technology changes, if you don't upgrade your PC the moment you buy it, it's not worth changing because the old parts it takes will be obsolete and much more expensive.
All Apple's doing is catering to the 90+% or so market that doesn't upgrade their computers after they buy it (short of buying external hard drives and such). Which means they're free to experiment with other formfactors and designs and not hindered by the need to fit stuff like slots and SATA bays and what not.
Apple's been doing this many times - they got rid of the floppy drive in the iMac (much to the horror of many people), and went all USB with it (at the time when USB-anything meant 1.1 and $expensive compared to stuff that used legacy ports).
Hell, Lion went and did away with "Save" and "Quit" as vestigal bits that harkened from earlier computing days when saving meant minutes-long waits to the floppy or tape drive, and manual memory and process management was required because automatic systems were not available (or efficient).
Ditto stuff like Mac App Store, Gatekeeper and the like - to most people, the computer is a tool - a somewhat stylish box that sits on a desk and lets them get work done, communicate with friends, family and other people, play games, etc. They don't want to be "system admins" or "computer technicians" - they just want to use it as a tool to facilitate their lives, just like a car facilitates transportation for most people (and likewise, they don't care about what makes it go or that they can tinker with the ECU to make it peppier or diagnose the "check engine" light.)
Hell, some people use Linux because they need to get work done. If some program isn't installed, they won't apt-get it, they'll ask someone what to do (which usually ends up being apt-get something). Recompiling the kernel? Not likely. Hell, they may not even install updates (which can flash in the menu bar all day).
Re:Gizmodo has been banned for life from Apple eve (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, my response here has nothing to do with the credibility of Gizmodo in this article (they may or may not be, I honestly don't know). I just want to say that any time we defend an incredulous source of information because there might be a tiny nugget of truth buried in their lies, we only serve to give more credibility to those lies. Sort of like the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.