When I went to the Apple Store yesterday morning to return my Powerbook, one of the men who came in about ten minutes after me arrived visibly annoyed. He was carring an iPod and the box it came in. Now, the way that Apple does tech support at their store is that there's a queue, you put your name on the queue, and then you get helped. Keeping in mind that most stores dont have in-store tech support, this is a nice service that Apple does for their customers.
About ten minutes into his wait, he has an angry outburst about how disappointed his is with this store's response time, and how Apple doesn't seem to feel like the customer's time is important because he's been waiting here for 10 minutes, and how there should be more than one guy behind the counter helping out.
Genius behind the bar says it's really not up to him, and that the scheduling and placement of employees in their positions is a management decision, and that if he is not satisified with this ...
But the man cut off the genius, raising his hand and saying "Stop, that's enough. Don't even..."He was silent for about 10 seconds before asking the genius if he had kids, to which the genius responded "Yes, I do. One is 19, the other is 23". The man responded "So then, you know what it's like. When you have kids, you want to spend every moment you can with them, instead of waiting in the Apple Store."
When he said this, I wanted to scream at the man: "Dude, you need to get your priorities straightened out. If you want to spend your time with your kid, spend it with your kid, don't spend it here at the store. Which is more important, your iPod or you kid? Yes, I realize that iPods are important and you have a problem with it, but why come here on a sunny Saturday morning when you could be playing catch in the park with him? Why not come back during your lunch break during your work week? Why waste weekend time if you have something better to do?"
What annoyed me worse was that I stayed long enough to hear him explain his problem: Apparently the man owns 5 or 6 iPods and out of all of them, this is the only one that has the ability to blow out the speakers on the headphones.
Obviously I have no idea whatsoever about the circumstances of the man and his life other than the brief encounter here in the Apple store, but if I was in his shoes, and I had 5 or 6 iPods at home, there is no way in hell I would be spending my Saturday morning at the Apple store rather than spending it my kids. I've got 5 or 6 of them, and it can wait for a time when I'm not with my kids -- or better yet, f you absolutely must do the iPod thing that day why not bring them with you to the Apple store?
I just don't understand people sometimes, how they can say they want to do one thing but when given the decision to actually make, they do not choose what said they wanted to do. The power of choice, and the responsibility of choice is always entirely that person's, and it frustrates me to hear people say "I've got no choice. I have to do this." Because I believe there is always a choice. We may not always like the choices, but they are there.
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