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Apple Store Employees Aren't Allowed To Say 'Crash', 'Bug', or 'Problem' (theguardian.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader mspohr shares a Guardian article which argues that Apple Store employees "are underpaid, overhyped and characters in a well-managed fiction story" who "use emotional guile to sell products":
When customers run into trouble with their products, geniuses are encouraged to sympathize, but only by apologizing that customers feel bad, lest they implicate Apple's products as the source of the trouble. In this gas-lit performance of a "problem free" brand philosophy, many words are actually verboten for staff. Do not use words like crash, hang, bug, or problem, employees are told. Instead say does not respond, stops responding, condition, issue, or situation. Avoid saying incompatible; instead use does not work with. Staff have reported the absurdist dialogues that can result, like when they are not allowed to tell customers that they cannot help even in the most hopeless cases, leading customers into circular conversations with employees able neither to help nor to refuse to do so....
[I]n a move so ridiculous it's almost certain to be a hit, the Genius Bar has been rebranded the "Genius Grove". Windows are opened to blur the distinction between inside and outside, and the stores are promoted as quasi-public spaces. "We actually don't call them stores any more," the new head of retail at Apple, former Burberry executive Angela Ahrendts (2017 salary: $24,216,072), recently told the press. "We call them town squares."
The article argues that since there launch in 2001, Apple Stores "have raked in more money -- in total and per square foot -- than any other retailer on the planet, transforming Apple into the world's richest company in the process."
But it also complains that Apple's wealth "flows from the privatization of publicly funded research, mixed with the ability to command the low-wage labor of our Chinese peers, sold by empathetic retailers forbidden from saying 'crash'."
[I]n a move so ridiculous it's almost certain to be a hit, the Genius Bar has been rebranded the "Genius Grove". Windows are opened to blur the distinction between inside and outside, and the stores are promoted as quasi-public spaces. "We actually don't call them stores any more," the new head of retail at Apple, former Burberry executive Angela Ahrendts (2017 salary: $24,216,072), recently told the press. "We call them town squares."
The article argues that since there launch in 2001, Apple Stores "have raked in more money -- in total and per square foot -- than any other retailer on the planet, transforming Apple into the world's richest company in the process."
But it also complains that Apple's wealth "flows from the privatization of publicly funded research, mixed with the ability to command the low-wage labor of our Chinese peers, sold by empathetic retailers forbidden from saying 'crash'."
... back when I was a suit.
At a meeting, I told management that we had a major problem.
My boss corrected me saying, "We don't have problems, we have opportunities."
I said, "OK, then I have nothing to report."
A big wheel raised his hand to my boss and said to me, "No, go ahead and report."
I told him. "We have an opportunity that's causing a major problem."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Everything is awesome, all Apple products are flawlessly perfect. ~ Duke of Duloc
And so the little BUG never got fixed. As a result, several web-facing products began quietly failing. Nobody dared report it as the Ecuadorian embassy is already full up. And so the little BUG grew and grew. One morning, Apple work up to most of the Apple missing. A large worm was then observed munching away down Cupertino Ave and Apple Way, devouring all in its path. It had become unstoppable.....
And the rest kids, is history. Today we can look at these Apple products on display in our museum. Note they are heavily sealed for safety reasons....
I don't own an Apple computer but if I did and I needed tech support (which I wouldn't), I would make it my mission to use all the forbidden language and act confused when they didn't respond using the same language. When they finally quit the linguistic acrobatics I'd start yelling, "HERETIC! HE SPOKE THAT WHICH SHALL NOT BE SPOKEN!", pointing and maybe jump on on a table to maximize store-wide attention.
And that's how I plan to get banned from every Apple "town square". ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"We agreed not to use the word recession in The White House."
"Then what do we call it?"
"A bagel."
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
"Overpriced"
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
They're sales staff. They're as much geniuses as Subway sandwich makers are "artists".