This is the kind of thing that drives Fake Steve Jobs crazy.

Seriously, it's a great illustration of a chain being only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it? A major computer manufacturer being undone by one self-important twit making, what, $12/hour? Almost enough to make you want to backdate your options.

I've had problems like that in Apple stores a couple of times. Now when I go in there I just start mumbling about how my Dell is better and how Gentoo is at least as good as Leopard and so forth. That way when they yell at me, they have a reason. :)

Sorry about the bad experience. I've never been to an "official" Apple store, although I've read lots of rave reviews of how helpful the employees are, etc. I like shopping online!

Perhaps it was just a random bad experience?

Regardless, definitely poor reaction by the employee and poor security setup of the store.

Send an email to steve@apple.com. Really. It drives Real Steve as crazy as Fake Steve. "Only as strong as the weakest link" is right. I'm guessing that there was no signage because someone is supposed to be at the computer all the time (being concierge.) Chances are the person snapping at you was the one who just got busted for being away from her post without being properly relieved.

Even at that, it could have been handled much better. The first thing I thought was, "I'm sorry, this iMac is for employee use. If you are interested in the iMac, there is one over here for you to try... let me sho u thmz." (I always think of anyone in retail as being about 3 seconds from turning into a lolcat.)

I've never had any bad experiences like that at an Apple store. I've been to one at "The Shops at Willow Bend" (now there's a pretentious name) in Dallas, and one at the Mall of America. Both were pleasant enough experiences.

I suspect Ms. Concierge had had a little too much of the peace and goodwill we all show toward retail personnel during the Christmas season, leaving her on edge.

My better half, though, gave me Leopard for Christmas and I'm sure she ordered it online.

For a truly bad shopping experience, yesterday's trip to the women's shoe department at Midland's Dillard's would be hard to beat. There were women swarming the place, with stacks of shoe boxes in the aisles and in the chairs. The swarms were trying vainly to catch the eyes of the two or three salespeople there, who were feigning blindness more effectively. When my wife finally got someone to wait on her, the first trip back to the storage area yielded four pairs of shoes all incorrectly sized. The next trip produced two of the wrong style, one wrong size, and only one that was what she had requested.

I wish she was as quick to swear off Dillard's as you are the Apple store, but that's just not going to happen.

Bret, I'm pretty sure my reaction and opinion won't undo Apple, and it does speak well for the company that this one example stands out in such contrast. I don't think that a similar post about, say, Circuit City would have raised an eyebrow.

Beth, you weren't just in there before me, were you? ;-)

Justin, I do think it was an isolated incident, but in a hyper-competitive environment, the margin for error is just about zero.

Phelps, I had the same thought about the station being unmanned. I guess the best defense is a good offense, but when you're offending the customer, the victory is hollow. (Wow...how's that for overdoing the sports metaphor? ;-)

Kelly, I think there's also a difference between how men and women react to things like this. (I'm probably going to get in trouble over that, but I refuse to chalk it up to female overreaction. ;-) My wife didn't have the same feeling of righteous indignation; she just moved on to the next display. But, then, she's also shopped for shoes at Dillard's before.

Dare I say it?

One bad Apple store don't spoil the whole bunch.

The "concierge" computer?

Maybe next time you're in there you could ask it to help you "by arranging a tour, making theater and restaurant reservations, etc."

(quoted from the OS X dictionary)

I find it strange and uncommon that you were treated that way. I've been to no less than 6 Apple stores including that one in Texas and always had great service. When I bought my MacBook Pro at that very store the salesperson rung my purchase up right there with a handheld dealy and asked where I wanted the recipe emailed.
I'd chop it up to some kid having a bad day, if I condemned HEB for every time they didn't have something or I sacked my own groceries, we wouldn't eat. I won't even go into what I think of service at stores with the name "Depot" in them.

My daughter has consistently told me that I was not cool enough to own an Apple. This just confirms it.

My office eMac has gotten to the point in its life when I'm ready to put it out on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, and since the boss has had hands-on experience with its eccentricities, he's in agreement that it's time for a replacement, which will be our first using the new Intel chips. I was planning to stop by the Austin store in a couple of weeks for some hands-on demonstrations and some talk about how nicely it would play with our existing Adobe/Microsoft OSX Office software. But we may end up just ordering through MacConnections, since we already have an established relationship with one of their salespeople, and he does not have that quasi-messanic/bunker mentality attitude that too many Apple aficionados (and apparently, store clerks) tend to have.

I think it's a little absurd to base an opinion about Apple in general on an experience with one store clerk.

For the most part, Apple's clerks are basically kids (okay, maybe not to them, but to an old guy like me, they're kids) and while Apple pays better than most retail these days, it's not exactly a career track. (You cannot live on $24,000 a year in any major city in this country.) And while those who posted here seem like perfectly reasonable people, customers can really behave badly and obnoxiously these days and after a while it gets to you. Walk into almost any department store these days and what you see are customers basically trashing the store: they pull something off the rack, look at it and let it fall to the floor.

The Christmas season can be pretty rough in retail. Cut the kid a break....maybe she's not obnoxious all the time. And even if she is, it's one incidence. Can you say that everyone who works in whatever business you are involved with treats everyone perfectly all the time? Sometimes, we don't even realize how we come across to people.

Re-read my post. I didn't trash Apple in general (I've been a Mac user since 1986 and this incident won't change that), nor did I attack the employee, just her lapse in judgment. (And, by the way, this was no "kid." She was obviously old enough to know better.)

All of your points are valid; I won't argue with a single one. But if nothing else, my story simply points out how high Apple has raised the bar in terms of customer expectations, and what a two-edged sword this is when those expectations aren't met.

Perhaps there is confidential information on that computer that shouldn't be seen like customer phone numbers; ProCare and One to One Account information; and perhaps corporate news. There was no sign on it due to Apple Retail's look and feel. It is placed in the customer area because its just like a "concierge" at a hotel.

If you want to pursue the "hotel concierge" metaphor, then the computer should have been facing away from the customer area. It should have been either locked down while unattended, or not left unattended.

Yelling at a customer for touching an unlabeled, unattended computer in a retail store specifically designed for customers to touch unattended computers is tough to justify.

Ok just because you had one little incident at an apple store you shouldn't let that turn you off...

of course the concierge position is new and the stores might be trying to work out with new employees and especially during the holiday season...so dont be such a hardass and complain about that...

i hate people who complain about the smallest thing like my waiter forgot my cup of water...its human error, it happens and get over it cuz its like complaining about how your water isn't wet enough...geez people these days

i've never had a bad experience at a store and i've witnessed someone who was complaining about how a macbook didnt come with all the bundled crappy software a pc did...i said to the other person right in front of the specialist get over it and most the time you dont even use half the crap that pc's come with...if you cant handle what they give you than dont buy it or go there, simple as that :D

han dont buy it or go there, simple as that

Gee, I'm pretty sure that's precisely what I said I was going to do.

I love the way some folks are somehow able to rationalize that it's perfectly acceptable for a store's employee to yell at a customer. I guess we really do live in an age of diminished expectations.

Go back to the bunker mentality thing I was talking about. Many Apple aficionados have been battling against the tide for so long that they reflexively become defensive about anyone saying anything bad about Mr. Jobs' company, less it push a few more people over to Mr. Gates and the dark side.

I love the hierarchy layout of the UNIX-based OS X system, and prefer it by leaps and bounds over the horror that is Windows Vista (home premium edition). But I thought the search engine on 10.0 through 10.39 was an abomination (fixed since 10.4, though with no acknowledgment of how bad the original OS X system was) and there are people out there who will still swear to their dying breath that the one-button mouse Macs come with by default is just as easy/convenient to use as the two-button mouse that has been the Windows default for almost two decades.

Apple's had a major resurgence over the past six years, but it would be nice if a lot of the company's supporters would stop acting like (Apple board member) Al Gore does on global warming, and admit that people with criticisms of the company's products, or their stores, might actually have a point once in a while.