What’s Up With My iPhone? – Behind The Scene Look At What Happens At Apple’s Retail Stores

What’s Up With My iPhone? – Behind The Scene Look At What Happens At Apple’s Retail Stores

I found this column – Retail Therapy: Inside The Apple Store (via DaringFireball). It’s written by an Apple retail store genius that goes by the pseudonym   J. K. Appleseed.

The tagline is :

This isn’t brick and mortar, it’s glass and steel. J. K. Appleseed takes you backstage at Apple Retail, the supercollider of human expectations and consumer technology.

J.K. Appleseed piece – What’s Up With Your iPhone, is very informative and witty, making it a must read for owners of an iPhone.

J.K. Appleseed:

When someone finds out you work in an Apple Store, you brace yourself for two questions. First, they ask if you get an employee discount. Since you do get a limited number of purchase discounts to share, you have a decision to make.

It’s the second question that might get you in over your head…

What’s up with my iPhone?

Discounts you can share are one of several perks that come with the job, but servicing iPhones in the Apple store is like playing Russian roulette. Each time you begin a repair interview, you take another shot at meeting that insane customer, the one destined to star in a viral video, the one who will shout your face off because the world doesn’t work the way they think it should. You thought you were just a retail employee. Nope, you’re the face of customer service today, and for some that means you’re the face to spit on. Once you’ve met that customer, and you absolutely will, some part of you learns to fear—or at least to inspect with extreme prejudice any prospect of—offering iPhone help. Your eyes have been opened to the dark side, to how deeply, madly, and unconsciously people invest themselves into their tech.

“It’s not working! Can you see that? My whole life is in here, and it’s not working!”

“Then don’t throw it into a urinal again, sir!” I never get to say.

Image Credit: J.K. Appleseed.