Yeah, but it's still our job to make fun of the manager who can't put a simple Excel Graph together. We gotta have standards.

Maybe that's what needs to happen. Maybe our iPods and iPads SHOULD cost us a little bit more. In competition to lower prices, companies have moved manufacturing jobs overseas. We've become a society of consumers, we hardly produce any of the things we consume. Maybe if our "things" cost a little bit more money, there'd be more incentive to build things here and bring jobs back.

And you know what? Forget the blackjack AND the blow!

I used to work at the Apple Store and before they released the changes to the in-app purchasing. One day, a customer cam in and was pissed off that his kid had racked up $200 in some scammy game app. I'll never forget this, but one of his main counterpoints was him incredulously saying, "What am I supposed to do? Review every app my kid wants to play??"
I nodded and smiled in commiseration, but inside my head I said, "Yes. Yes you are. You're the adult, that's what you do."
So, yeah, there are definitely predatory apps out there, but there are also a lot of dumb parents.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Requiem_for_Methuselah_%28episode%29

The machines have found proof that we have an immortal painter living who's been changing names throughout history!

I don't know if it's the "Terrorist Watch List" but my name somehow got on a list. I remember when I was getting my ticket at the check in stand, the agent took my ID and walked off. For 30 minutes I was standing there with no answers. When they came back, they said my name was similar to a name on a watchlist and in the future, I needed to make sure to add my middle initial to any tickets I purchased. I spaced on that the next ticket I bought and sure enough, the same 30 minute process. Since then I've always used my middle initial with no issues.

The real kicker is that my name is in no way unique. It's one of the top 10 most common names in the US for the last hundred years. My last name, while not THAT common, is still very common. I actually like it because no one can ever find me online - you can Google my name - even with my full middle name - in quotes and thousands of people with the same name. It's like saying "John Smith" is on the list, so anyone named John Smith could possibly be that guy. So, if it's anything like my situation, common names may get added to a list - and from what we've seen in the past - it can be very difficult to be removed from the list.

I'm an American. Join the club. Unfortunately our political system is turning into a plutocracy where the money of a few drowns out the voice of the many. A lot of us are beyond genuinely disgusted too - but have little choice in the matter.

But that was the point I was making :)

It's totally the employee's fault. They violated the store policy in exactly the way that you're saying. I'm not agreeing with, or condoning it. I knew enough not to make that mistake, but knowing what I know about the pressures put on you as an Apple salesperson, I was saying I can totally see how someone less experienced or who didn't give a shit would do that. ;)

I'm totally not disagreeing with you at all. If you've spent any time in Retail, you'll know that 90% of the time, Customers really have no idea what they want or what the rules are. Most customers are pretty dumb. Hell, I couldn't even trust them to remember a password that they JUST created minutes before. They are the absolute WRONG source of any useful information - especially about transactions.

Exactly. Apple Store employees (or Retail Employees in General) couldn't give a shit when they're incredibly busy. One person on a (somewhat) busy day could easily make up 10 times whatever revenue was lost due to that bad transaction.

I used to work at The Apple Store. And that's really the way it should work. However, from my time there, we had credit cards declined all of the time. The Apple Store is a huge place for fraudulent purchases and credit cards routinely auto-blocked access when purchases were for Apple and outside of typical purchases. We actually had the VP of BOEING's Business credit card declined. The standard procedure was to have the customer call the bank, validate that they were them, and that they indeed DID want to make the purchase. After about a minute, we could re-run the card and it'd work.

Now, when the payment device asked for an Override code, it was the job of the EMPLOYEE to got to the back and call up the bank. We're provided special numbers to call and special codes we have to type in. It's a horribly clunky and long process which everyone hated to do, but that was it. So, this is completely the employee's fault - albeit it's really a training issue and the blame rests with Apple. I can totally see why an employee would

#1) Not want to go through that process when they need to get to the next sale

#2) Possibly be new and not completely understand the process

#3) Be susceptible to some clever social engineering - ie: There are some cases where the customer must call the bank. I need an override code from the bank to process this. The customer is calling the bank, so that means I don't have to!

So it's a big f-up, but I can totally understand how and why it happened.

Definitely my favorite internet quote! :D

From TFS: "If you were feeling especially paranoid, but wanted to keep the hardware intact for the next user, what would you do? "

I do have 3D vision, my strabismus is very slight compared to when I was younger. The surgery did work! I was worried that I would actually have to have surgery again because of how my eyes were acting up when I had my normal glasses and I would have to change focus from near to far to near again. Fortunately, the bifocal lenses help that tremendously to the point where it's not even an issue. I'm about 10-20 years younger than most people who need bifocals, but I can't argue with the results! I love reading and I'm a data analyst, so I use computers all the time - I think my eyes get a lot of training! :D As far as Lasik goes, it really doesn't seem like a worthwhile proposition because it won't really change anything for me! Thanks for the contemplation though... My appointment is coming up soon, maybe I'll look into it!

Save up some money to go to Europe and do the treatment there?

My eyes don't line up in the exact same place when I look at things. I had surgery when I was 15 to correct it, after 20 years, it's coming back a little (although to a much less significant degree). Fortunately, it's small enough that I can use lenses to correct it - I have to wear bifocals now - but that also means that Lasik will never work for me to improve my vision. I could have better than perfect vision in each eye and I'd still need corrective lenses. :|