Popular Mechanics have just published this article entitled ‘Confession of an Apple Store Emplyee’. The dude talks about drug dealers trying the buy iPhones, Chinese people trying to haggle, the new iPad and how working at Apple is only marginally better than working at McDonalds:
Dealing With Drug Dealers
We get a lot of drug dealers who try to buy iPhones with fake IDs. You can tell them instantly just by how shady they act, and they know you know, but you obviously can’t start accusing them of being drug dealers–they are customers, after all. But when they try to check out, they’ll use what are obviously fake IDs or fake credit cards, and it often turns out they’re using a dead person’s Social Security number or something. And when you call them out on that–then, they run.
Chinese Resellers
When the iPad first launched, we got tons of resellers from China coming in and trying to pay in cash. Back then, you had to reserve an iPad before you could pick it up, so they would go to the computers in the back of the store and create e-mail address after e-mail address just to reserve an iPad on the spot. We’d get a lot of weird e-mail addresses, like [email protected]. And they tried to haggle us on the price for iPads! This is Apple–no way would that work.
Working There Makes You Power Hungry
When I’m there, I get sucked into the competitive culture. Normally I’m pretty low-key, but when I’m at the store, it’s all sell, sell, sell! I wanna work my way up, get promoted and eventually get to the Genius Bar–which is where you want to be. Who doesn’t want to be a genius?
