Apple Stores: Worst Idea Ever

[chess]

My headphones currently play in one ear and intermittantly in the other, because I have broken something in their cable, so today I attempted to get some new headphones.

Unfortunately the Apple Store, which was the only place in the end of town I happened to be in which I knew sold over-ear headphones (can't wear in-ear ones, my ears are too scrawny and pathetic), is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to make me have a hideous freakout in the middle of town.

It is full of flashing things and loud noises. The headphones I wanted were at ceiling height - far too high for me to reach, although my husband could do it.

And there is no queuing system.

I took a long time to learn how to use shops. It requires interacting with strangers, which is never going to be the easiest thing in the world. So I learnt The Shop Script. You get your stuff and you take it to the Please Pay Here desk and you wait in line and talk to the person who is contained behind a desk and it is all very neat and orderly.

Except that isn't good enough for the Apple Store. It has a Genius Bar, but that's some kind of tech support thing, right?

No, you have to approach a shop assistant wandering around and basically implore them to take your money.

So we tried this. We approached one of the shop staff, and asked how to pay for something. They were just about to start doing a demo, to a whole table full of people now staring at our webcam image on their screens.

They indicated another member of staff, who was already besieged by at least two sets of people from different directions. This member of staff finished dealing with one person, went to the next one in the kind of line/huddle system that was forming ad hoc around them, and apologised to the rest of us that they would be a couple of minutes.

Then they DISAPPEARED.

Literally. They vanished into the crowd and left us kind of stranded in the middle of this sea of people. No indication of who else was in front of us, whether we needed to go and stand somewhere in particular...

Well, obviously now we should wait and they will come back in a couple of minutes. But there is very little which sets me off more than Standing And Waiting Somewhere Crowded And Noisy Where I'm In The Way, especially if the waiting is for a indefinite period of time / there are no indications of progress towards a resolution.

And some time later (I'd like to say 'five minutes' but I am acutely aware my time sense goes entirely haywire in these circumstances) I saw what seemed to be them, emerging from a back door, and hooking up with an entirely different customer I'd never seen before.

At this point I made tienelle put the headphones back and we bailed.

So I still don't have working headphones (which are kind of useful for getting to work because it gives me a Sorry I Didn't Hear You / I Don't Want To Talk To You social flag and blocks out Unexpected Noises) and am left with a strong desire to do violence to whoever thought that was a better way to sell things to people than the nice conventional wait-in-a-line method.

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Clearly the Apple store WANTS you to steal their headphones, and you should just walk out with a pair. You can pay the security guard if he tries to stop you.

Failing that Digital Village on t'interwebs do next-day delivery of a vast array of very nice headphones. *pimppimp*

[simont]

They also behave just as badly if you try to bring something back that's malfunctioning. I can't decide which is worse: to be so aggressively uninterested in selling you things in the first place, or to be equally contemptuous of their responsibilities to you once they've done so.

[theinquisitor.livejournal.com]

Their 'flagship' store in SF has such things as 'a counter behind which some staff are safely corralled' - presumably to deal with exactly this sort of reaction.

I've bought things in SF repeatedly. Never in Cambridge.

Possible correlation, actually.

[lupie-stardust.livejournal.com]

Yes! The one time I ever went in there, I was completely perplexed. This isn't an upgrade on an existing social system! This is a complete cataclysmic failure!

[lupie-stardust.livejournal.com]

"aggressively uninterested in selling you things"

This is precisely how I'd have put it.

[littlebus.livejournal.com]

At least you got further than I did. I looked in the window once and shook my head and walked on.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I'm torn. Before you've bought, you at least have the option to just walk away. But on the other hand, how dismissive of you does it seem if they don't want to deal with you to take your money?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Or leave the money on the shelf and walk out!

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

Maplin and John Lewis should have a reasonable choice, and if there's still a Sony shop in Lion Yard they may well have some too?

[ktx.livejournal.com]

This is so true...can you order them from the website?

[dreema.livejournal.com]

from what i gather the apple headphones aren't even that great on sound quality.

Depending on what style you're after, i can recommed these guys - http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/

I got my last set of sennheiser px100's from them, quick delivery and reasonable price.

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

Now you put it like that I'm starting to think that's the whole point. They dismiss and devalue the customer thus making the customer feel that the store is doing them a favour by taking their money.

Uhm... I think many cults work in this way.

[aardvarkoffnord.livejournal.com]

I have this love/hate abusive relationship with Apple. I admit it. I keep trying to escape, but things like the iPad (which I have used even more than I imagined) keep bringing me back to get hurt.

The Apple Store in Cambridge sucks. I have tried to get technical support there, and they don't know. Even basic stuff. I have been in to the one in Birmingham (and also the Solihull store), and the answers are there.

There is sometheing fundamentally wrong with the Cambridge Apple Store.

[hatter.livejournal.com]

Not sure most of the staff would know how to handle cash.


the hatter

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't thinking that would make it easy or convenient for them -- after all, likely someone else would steal it -- I was more thinking that that you could plausibly claim you made a good faith effort to pay them as best you could, and it's not your fault that didn't accept payment in some more convenient manner and serve them right.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly. Except that once you've experienced an apple store it's comparatively easy to tell them to fuck off, you're going to join a mainstream religion and/or buy it on the interent; you need some way of sucking people in _first_ and _then_ destroying their esteem.

[naath.livejournal.com]

UGH, no, this is not an improvement on standing in an orderly line to wait your turn! Who thought this! ugh. Reasons not to like apple #292344.

[elektrobard.livejournal.com]

See, this affirms my belief in Apple being incredibly arrogant in their customer base. I have never been in one of their Apple stores for any longer than 60 seconds because I'm completely put off by the apparent chaos of the place.

But I'm fully aware they'll function just fine without my need to part with cash in their store.

Well, all this and I can't exactly shop in most stores at the moment, let alone theirs, probably doesn't help ;)

[eriathwen-bob.livejournal.com]

I have similar hatred of in-ear headphones, and very much swear by skullcandy ones, which also come in a range of colours, and are sold in HMV.

[eriathwen-bob.livejournal.com]

Or you can use Amazon

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

You've just described exactly why I hate buying shoes or upgrading my phone. At least the Orange store in the Grafton has the decency to be deserted when I have the time to visit.