Apple, My Eye

Apple is cool. I get it. And sure, Steve Jobs is a genius. Now, please let me an buy an iPod, already.

I’d always enjoyed browsing in the Apple store on the Plaza. Friends had related horror stories about service issues and over-the-top attitude problems, but aside from enduring the occasional smug lecture from members of the Apple cult, I’d never had to deal with it.

It’s not that retail clerks shouldn’t be treated as equals. Among my stints in that role is a long tenure ringing up cigarettes and magazines at Plaza News just fifty yards from where Apple conducts business today.

Apple no doubt encourages its retail employees to adapt a pompous, condescending attitude, probably in the name of "branding" and modern efficiency. But being treated as a potentially unworthy customer by a "Mac Genius" doesn’t work for me.