Odd Apple Store Experience

[dpaanlka]

My SMC Wireless G router failed, so went to the Apple Store with intents to buy the Airport Extreme N station. Anyway talking to the salesman, I described to him my home network requirements, which include port forwarding 80 and 21 (www and ftp) to my wired web server.

He insisted the Airport Extreme was not appropriate for that, and that I should "look into" Cisco routers. I explained to him that it was just a project/hobby web site, and he assured me it wouldn't work and it was a bad idea and they wouldn't "support" that.

I bought it anyway, brought it home, and it does everything I want it to, perfectly, and easier and faster to set up than any other router I've ever owned (all the advanced controls are located right in the AirPort Utility).

Weird... I wouldn't have bought it if my gut feeling hadn't been this guy didn't know what he was talking about. I couldn't believe a $190 (after tax) router would be so crippled.

I was disappointed and would have wished that out of two different employees I would have gotten more knowledgeable answers.

 

[xJulianx]

Starting to hear alot of stories about Apple's sales staff talking out of there behinds. Not sure if they are ignorant and think they are right with this kind of information, or if they have recieved poor training.

The mind boggles

 

[JNB]

I know it's inappropriate and ageist and all that, but I still have a little trouble taking technical advice from someone who wasn't born when I started in the industry. Or even when the first Mac came out. Mea maxima culpa.

Not to say that I haven't met and worked with countless numbers of young people whose skills, talent, and knowledge were the equal of their enthusiasm, but I've also been to Fry's, CompUSA, Best Buy, & etc., where not only was the knowledge in doubt, the enthusiasm had already been sucked dry, if it ever existed.

Apparently the Apple Store doesn't screen any better. Sigh...

 

[SkyBell]

The employee's seem to be getting lazier. I was in there just earlier today, and accidently forgot my bag of stuff I had bought in there. (which I realized an hour later...Heh, those iSight camera's on the 24" iMac with photobooth ...so fun. Wish I had chosen an iMac over a Mini)

I went up to the counter and asked if they had seen this bag (I described it to him) He looks to his buddy next to him, opens his mouth like he's about to say something, then turns back to me and says "Nope, it's probably gone."

Not satisfied with this, I went to the back of the store and talked to a guy who was just messing around. He went into the back room, and came back 30 seconds later with my bag and stuff!

Some people these days...

 

[FrankBlack]

I suspect that Apple has the same problems as any other retail operation. Mostly, it's high turnover oweing to the usual factors: Pay not enough, irregular hours that are constantly changing, having to deal with some customers that are just plain nasty, etc. Still, I have also heard a lot of bad tales of late, enough to make me ask what the heck is going on.

Does anyone have any figures on the turnover at the apple stores? Is it greater than expected, or does it fall in line with the rest of the retail industry?

 

[aquajet]

This functionality is clearly included in the Airport base station. I use the same port mapping function for remote file sharing.

You should consider reporting this incompetence to the salesperson's superior.

 

[dpaanlka]

This functionality is clearly included in the Airport base station. I use the same port mapping function for remote file sharing.

You should consider reporting this incompetence to the salesperson's superior.

Well once I realized how obvious this feature was (it isn't hidden or anything) I did exactly that, saying maybe they should give the employees a better run through of the Airport's features.

 

[TheBobcat]

Noticed the same thing there lately. The employees seem to be more interested in moving iPods in my experience. I was just browsing at the new machines and they probably pitched iTunes+iPod and how great it works on a Mac to me like 4 times. And that was after I told them I already had a Mac.

That and they love to use the word blog.

 

[Turkish]

You should consider reporting this incompetence to the salesperson's superior.

Come on now.

The guy most likely gets paid a few bucks above minimum wage, and on the bright side, at least he did what he thought was right by not recommending the product for you.

You're still going to get better help in the Apple Store than Best Buy or Circuit City any day of the week.

 

[AlexGFX88]

Come on now.

The guy most likely gets paid a few bucks above minimum wage, and on the bright side, at least he did what he thought was right by not recommending the product for you.

You're still going to get better help in the Apple Store than Best Buy or Circuit City any day of the week.

Yeah, tell me about it. I went to Best Buy one time, and I asked a member of staff where the keyboards and mice were. He told me they didn't have those! O_O I, of course, went straight to the back and found a whole isle of them.

Gotta love butt speaking workers, especially those that believe what they are saying is true .. :-O

Cheers,
Alex

 

[CrackedButter]

Come on now.

The guy most likely gets paid a few bucks above minimum wage, and on the bright side, at least he did what he thought was right by not recommending the product for you.

You're still going to get better help in the Apple Store than Best Buy or Circuit City any day of the week.

I get paid just above minimum wage as well but I won't give that sort of advice, I would go and find out, not assume, I work in retail as well, its no excuse. You're there to do a job and if memorising facts is too hard to do then why bother with even such a simple job as retail? What else is there to do in that kind of job, stack shelves? What joy, I'd rather chat to the customer for as long as possible!

I'm a uni student as well and it isn't even my main interest.

 

[gkarris]

I had a really bad one a couple of years ago.

I went into an Apple store to get a video cable for my iBook.

I walked into the store. I went to one of the employees. He had an attitude with me since I "disturbed" him surfing assorted hip-hop websites.

I asked him about a video cable for my iBook. He answered "I don't know what that is" and went back to surfing.

I went to another employee, he said he never heard of one. I went to a Mac and showed him on the AppleStore online. He said that they didn't carry them... I looked at the shelf myself and there they were...

 

[pianoman]

i know several competent Apple store employees. i also have had poor service from Apple store employees. it's kind of hit or miss. so far the best plan of action is to research the product yourself (including asking questions here on MR) and go in and get it without asking questions. if someone tells you something you know to be incorrect, forget about it and stick to your plan.

FWIW, Apple store "Mac Specialists" (read: salespeople) and cashiers in Maryland and Northern Virginia start at $9/hour.