Apple Help (More Like No Help)

Today I finally got to take Ali’s phone in to be looked at. As I was driving to the mall I got the text message from Apple saying they were ready for me. I figured, great. Then as I was parking the car in the mall lot, I get a message saying my appointment time is passed. I thought, yeah, sure, I’ll be in the store in two minutes. I get there and tell the kid checking people in that I am there for my appointment to have my daughter’s phone looked at. The “genius” proceeds to tell me that I missed my appointment window and that my spot had been given to someone else. I was floored. Apparently Apple expects you to stay AT the store and wait around, or roam aimlessly around the mall.

So the kid tells me he is sorry and there is nothing he can do, but I can make another appointment. OK, fine, let’s do that. He gives me an appointment for 1:30. Then he tells me that they recommend only being like a mile away at most. I thought, yeah, sure that will work… I have stuff to do and I am not going to hang around the mall for 3 hours just waiting. I thought I’ll run home, get some work done on the kitchen, and be back at Mayfair around 1:00 so I can be waiting for the appointment notification.

Then as I am doing work on the kitchen prepping for the cabinets, I get a text message saying that Apple is almost ready for me and I’ll be getting my notice sent shortly. It was only 12:20. I had to quickly grab my things, run to the car and take off for the mall since it takes a minimum of about 15 minutes to get there. I probably broke every posted speed limit driving to Mayfair. And as I was on my way there, I got the text notice saying they were ready for me and I just needed to check in. That was as I was driving into the mall parking lot.

I parked and took off sprinting thru the mall like an idiot. I had parked on the Macy’s end since it was easiest even though the Apple store was on the other end of the mall. As I hit the center court, I get the message saying my time had passed. I was literally 50 feet from the doors. I got there, out of breath and told the next kid there checking people in that I had an appointment, I literally just got the message saying the window was closed as I was running into the store. He could see I was totally out of breath, and was nice enough to say, well, since you were just outside the doors he’s still take me. GEE… THANKS!!!!

I ended up getting a dude that looked like he was about 24, and was a bit like Jesus… Long dark hair, hipster beard, looked like he hadn’t showered in a couple of days… Great staff Apple. Anyway, he was nice enough to look over Ali’s phone, run a bunch of diagnostic tests on it, and after about 20-30 minutes he came back with the diagnosis…. It was broken. The good thing was that the phone itself, (data, iOS, etc.) was still OK. All that needed replacing was the screen. Phew… That was a relief.

So then we get to getting it scheduled to be replaced. Hold on… there seems to be a problem. Apparently, the screen has already been replaced. I told him, uhh, no it hasn’t. I should know. So then he goes in the back to check some things out. He comes back and says that while he believes me that the screen is still the original one on the phone, his system is telling him that it has already been replaced and they can’t do it again. So before he can do anything more about it, he’ll need to get it straightened out in their system. Unfortunately, that won’t happen now until next week. So Alison has to go another couple of days without her phone. Plus, I can’t keep taking off in the middle of the day to run to the Apple store, and even though I have the day off, I am missing out on actually getting work done at home. I will sure be relieved when Alison gets her driver’s license and she can take care of this kind of stuff herself. And people wonder why Apple “Geniuses” get made fun of.