As mentioned yesterday, I scheduled an appointment at the Apple Store to take my laptop in this morning. The appointment was for 10:45AM. I waltzed into the back of the store at precisely 10:43AM (Pacific Apple-iPhone Standard Time) and waited to hear my name called. I was #1 on the screen so it should have been any second… There I was: richardb in white text on a baby blue background following the number one.
An Apple employee saw me waiting and asked if I needed “help checking in”, which I thought was odd phraseology since appointment holders can’t check themselves in on the computer there, so its not really “help”, its just doing it all for me.If anyone was getting “helped” it wasn’t her to me, it was me helping her do her goddamn job.
She bops me into the machine and says it should be any second.
Well, to give away the ending: it wasn’t any fkking second, it was never fkking second. I waited for 10 minutes as I watched my name disappear from the screen and people coming in after me being helped right away. When I finally asked wtf to another employee, he batted around the check-in computer for a minute – looked puzzled – and went behind the Genius Bar to talk to one of the dudes. He came back and told me that I checked in too late after my appointment.
Well, I didn’t check in at all, so the dipshit employee who waited 4 minutes while I stood there to do their job checked me in too late, but still, that shouldn’t matter because she checked me in at 10:47AM (Pacific Apple-iPhone Standard Time).
Apple dude says that my options are to wait a few hours on stand by and hope that some schmuck like me who arrived on time gets bumped for no reason and I can steal his slot or to make a new appointment for 8pm today, give Apple my laptop and wait for a call from them within 48 hours, make another appointment for another day, or to just kindly go fuck myself.
I gave him a “seriously?” objection that I got my appointment bumped despite being 2 minutes early, just because someone signed me in 2 minutes late?
“It was more than 2 minutes” this douchebag says with a “don’t yank my chain” expression. No. it was exactly 2 minutes. He obviously wasn’t going by the time on the computer and was just hoping that I was exaggerating my favor but nooop. It was 2 minutes.
Ya, and so what? that and 2 thousand dollars will get me an iMac. big wup. Being right was obviously not going to make him squeeze me in like he should have, so I left.
Same crap happened to me today at an Apple store in NJ: Arrived 5 minutes late and my appointment was gone. There really should be some sort rational give and take of at least 10 minutes. We are not machines and honet things can happen to make you late.