First, there was the Profile4, the thing they tried to say was better than the iMac. Then, there was/is "RipMixRespect", strangely similar to Apple's "Rip. Mix. Burn."
So did Apple just take a big, steaming dump all over Gateway?
It seems that Gateway includes music downloads with EMusic as a part of their promotions to get people to buy their boxes... And EMagic, well, that's part of UMG.
That's kinda funny, when you think about it. I wonder what the Gateway higher-ups are thinking right now.
And really, what, if anything, does this mean for Gateway? Are they now advertising for Apple?;-)
Ah, but the same can be said of many, many, many Windows exploits.
It's not like the majority of Windows bugs appear out of nowhere and are patched in the next week/month/year/whenever MS feels like it. They sit there, unnoticed, for however long, and then they're trumpeted about and patched.
So while you say, "The samba root exploit... went a decade without being patched," that's only because it was only a week ago that it was discovered.
The difference is in how it was dealt with. Microsoft like to, and they've said this publicly, sit on security problems until they've been announced by a third party. Usually, only then do the problems get fixed. For those in risk-sensitive environments, or anyone really concerned about security, this is a bit more than annoying. In 100% honest-to-the-mirror fact, Microsoft doesn't want you to know how your system is vulnerable until they've had a chance to announce a fix.
So excuse me if I have a problem with your comment. I use Mac OS X, and if I didn't have that, I'd be on straight-up FreeBSD or Linux. Windows can eat a fat one as far as I'm concerned.
-/-
Mikey-San
Burninating karma at the speed of TROGDOR!
I'm the Apple support contact for Virginia Commonwealth University. Before that, I worked for a retailer here in Richmond, CapitolMac, an Apple Specialist.
Apple, like other computer companies, use refurbished replacement parts at its discretion. They will never put a known-bad module in a customer's unit, ever, but as with even new parts, sometimes the replacement parts can fail. Apple, again like other companies, have refurbishing guidelines for service parts. In other words, they test 'em well.
Here is your warranty, and it does indeed say that they may use new or refurbished service parts:
It's also in your manual and AppleCare statement if you have one.
Now that I've said all of that junk, I'm sorry 'bout your Mac, dude.:-)
As far as I know, no company refurbishes LCDs. They may take a PowerBook with a dead logic board, for example, and scrap it for its good LCD after testing it, but I don't think you can really go in and repair an LCD to spec.
As for your line-out, humans are humans. It's not impossible that someone repairing it could have knicked something on the logic board somewhere, but they test all of your ports before they send your unit out of Houston. If it arrived with the new port problem, it should have been sent right back with a phone call to AppleCare.:-/
As for your replacement LCD, Apple Service guidelines state that an LCD with three dead pixels or six dead sub-pixels warrants replacement. If your replacement was that bad when it got to you, it should have been replaced again.
There's no official "after this many times, we replace your computer" policy, but speaking as a/consumer/ and not a service provider, if it were to come back a third time with something wrong, I'd start bitching for a complete replacement. Apple are usually good about taking care of their customers, so don't be afraid to ask what you're supposed to do if you get it back and it's still got a problem. (Don't be a pest (the customer reps are just customer reps, after all), but do ask if it concerns you.)
I'm no LCD scientist (though, I can tell you how they're made, thanks Apple Service Training for Losers with No Fscking Life), but it seems to me like heavy low-frequency sound coming/through/ the LCD would alter its color accuracy, at the least.
Granted, I have to put a good amount of pressure on my LCD to make it change color deeply, but don't you think if heavy low-frequency sound came out of it, something would happen, at least occasionally? What about the almost paper-thin glass sandwiched in the LCD layers?
I dunno. Seems to me like sound was made for speakers, not a display medium.
Does anyone out there have more info about the crap I just wrote?:-)
Apple charged for system software before 7.5. I used to have System 6 floppies somewhere.
However, versions prior to 7.6 (7.5.5 and before) can be downloaded freely from ftp.apple.com--but this is today, not back during the days of their releases.
You're ignoring what Schiller said. Your logic was that they're sorta alternating.
But look at the release dates of the major Mac OS releases (working backwards):
10.2 - 2002 - Paid 10.0 - 2001 - Paid There was no major OS release in 2000, save for the OS X Public Beta, free except for $20 shipping. Mac OS 9 - 1999 - Paid Mac OS 8.5 - 1998 - Paid Mac OS 8 - 1997 - Paid Mac OS 7.6 - 1996 - Paid Mac OS 7.5 - 1995 - Paid
At least, I/think/ that's how it went. At any rate, do you see a rough pattern here? Apple have released one "reference release" (paid upgrade) each year, with the exception of 2000, since System 7.5.
Ask him, very specifically, about Apple's DRM stance.
"You've just recently been added to Apple's board of directors. What are your feeling towards Apple's customer-friendly, honesty-based stance on Digital Rights Management?"
-/- Mikey-San Submitted without a karma bonus for extra flavour!
Create both "/Library/PDF Services" and "~/Library/PDF Services". Populate "/Library/PDF Services" with whatever you like. Those items should now appear in all users' Print dialogs.
It seems that you need the folder at the user level to get this to work.
I won't go into all of this, but one thing struck me:
"Visually impressive it may be - however, functionally it's fairly pointless. Apart from the *massive* overhead involved (a busy minimised terminal window will drag the entire GUI to a crawl"
Um. Crack smoking?
When a Terminal window is Docked, it does not update at all. I have "sudo fs_usage" running in a Terminal window which is in the Dock right now, and it's/not fucking moving./ Keep in mind that I'm launching Photoshop, two browsers, and Entourage at the same time, while watching that window thumbnail.
*watches*
Nothing.
Top says Terminal is using 6% of the CPU. When I take it out of the Dock, it jumps as the window starts updating again.
Actually, yeah, logistics issues hit us with that, too (replacing shelf stock with warranty parts after the fact).
The biggest one--I'd write more, but my lunch break is ending in a couple of minutes, sorry, man--is how we're shipped what we're shipped.
Order a replacement part from Apple or Dell. What does the box look like? Plain carboard, shipping labels, etc. (Airborne Express E-Z Ship labels, for example.)
Off the shelf, that new battery is in a nice box sans the shipping stuff we see in the back area.
An idea: "So open the box, give them the battery, replace it, and put it back on the shelf."
Well, then, something's sitting on the shelf that's been opened before, and isn't what was originally there. Honor system and doubt-benefitting aside, would you buy a new battery off of the shelf if it had been opened? You have no way to know, suddenly, and who knows what warranty implications that might have.
Might not have any.
Why introduce such a concern and potential headache? I don't buy opened cereal boxes even if I can't see holes in the bag inside and the stock boy assures me it's perfectly fine.
Dude: "Okay, lemme check it in and check it out for you."
Dude does his diagnosis. Battery is hosed. Replace battery, Dude says. Guy comes back the next day.
Dude yanks one off of the shelf.
Guy goes home.
Dude's internal service report reads: "Replaced battery with one from the shelf."
Dude: "Hey, Ordering Man, I replaced that Guy's battery with one of the twenty you ordered from the distributor instead of getting one specially shipped in from the manufacturer."
Ordering Man: "Okay, I'll pay our distributor with the reimbursement from the manufacturer."
Dude: "The manufacturer doesn't reimburse us for the warranty repair when they don't send us warranty parts. I mean, who would? They don't have any way to know for sure that we actually ordered something and did a repair."
Ordering Man: "So how do I pay our distributor?"
Dude: "Normally, we don't pay for the batteries we replace under warranty."
Ordering Man: "Where do you normally get your batteries?"
Dude: "The manufacturer. Is that a problem?"
Ordering Man: "Not as long as we pay our distributor."
Why does this sound like an episode of Bastard Operator from Hell? Because your "high and mighty, the customer should never understand that there are real people with real logistical problems on the other side of the counter" stance is just the kind of mindset that spawns classic BOFH stories.
Let's look at the scenario a little higher up the ladder.
Ordering Man: "Hey, Distributor Guy, we used three batteries as warranty replacements."
Distributor Guy: "What the fuck are you smoking? We pay the manufacturer for those! Where's our money for those!?"
Ordering Man: "You mean the manufacturer--"
Distributor Guy: "Of course not, you asshat! Do we look like a service provider? Where. Is. Our. Money."
Distributor Guy: "And you're making our lawyers happy. Money, please."
Or from another angle:
Distributor Guy: "Here's our monthly invoices."
Manufacturer looks over the NET-30s.
Distributor Guy: "These ten thousand batteries here, they're warranty replacements. Please give us that money back."
Manufacturer: "You were talking about smoking crack earlier..."
Oh, wait!
It doesn't always work that way in retail! Sometimes, the person above you doesn't get paid until you sell things! (See Bungie's old Rant on how video games get shelf space for more goodies here.) So you might think that this solves the problems itself, right? On the contrary, it causes more!
So we have this scene instead:
Distributor Guy: "Here's our monthly invoices."
Manufacturer looks over the NET-30s.
Distributor Guy: "These ten thousand batteries here, they're warranty replacements. We don't need to pay you for/those./"
Manufacturer invoices Distributor, who is $100,000 short because of warranty replacements. Distributor, meanwhile, invoices all of those local shops doing replacements with store stock for that $100,000. Well, the local shops can't/don't/won't/shouldn't pay because the customer didn't pay anything--it was under warranty each time.
Local Shops say to Manufacturer, "Give us this money, so we can pay Distributor, who can then pay you!"
I won't even get into lines of credit and all of the messes that come with/that/ stuff.
How is this remotely good for you, the end-consumer? Is it really so hard to understand these kinds of logistical concerns from that side of the counter?
Seems like it. I have to explain this more and more these days, as people want EVERYTHING IN TWO SECONDS FLAT. They can't hold on to their machine while the new battery arrives and eliminates all of these problems (and thus, reducing your beloved shop and manufacturer's internal costs and troubles, IN TURN making your shit cheaper in the long and short run), because that just "isn't good customer service". I can't tell you how many times a loaner computer has been demanded of me because of a dispatch (mailed-in) repair or I'm repairing a machine that isn't functional. By your logic, I should just give the guy a new computer off the shelf!
Part of good customer service is the good customer. Someone once told me that, and it's the complete truth. In this world, you get what you give.
If you're upset with a shop's service, they DO have an obligation to make it right. If you're an asshole, making un-thought-out and unreasonable demands, they have the right to be human and watch you walk out of the door.
Instead of acting like a toddler and taking your toys home, if it takes more than a few business days to get that battery,/complain to the source of the delay./ Getting uppity with the local shop puts an extra step in between that and your complaint getting to the manufacturer (yes, a good shop will bitch to the manufacturer when they can't get parts on time, don't worry about that;-))... It also will get you an annoyed sales or service department.
We're humans, Goddamnit. Treat us like we are, and understand that we don't like waiting a week for a part we should get overnight or within two business days, either. "Just give me one off of the shelf" is a more complicated imperative than it seems.;-)
This is how inventory works in retail-service shops.
The regular Slashdot "I know more than you, here's how it should be" people will chime in, but I don't give a shit. I've been doing this for years.
If my ordering guy orders twenty PowerBook G4 batteries to put on the shelf, I can't just take one and stick it in someone's machine and call it a day when I need to replace a battery.
Doing so adds extra fucked-upedness to my ordering guy's inventory system, and DOES NOT integrate with Apple's Global Service Exchange system for tracking and completing repairs. It's not meant to.
Apple has its own DIRECT channels--that's right, kiddies, most of the stuff you see in the store comes not from the manufacturer directly, but a wholesaler like Ingram Micro--to get service parts to service providers.
By using the in-place service system and channels, the customer gets:
1. Service that's integrated tightly with Apple.
2. The ability to track their own repair on Apple.com.
3. To avoid middle men like Ingram Micro. They suck. Hard.
Doing it the "give me one off of the shelf, you stupid lackey" way gets you:
1. Nowhere.
2. Absolutely no record of your computer ever having been repaired by a service provider; your machine won't have any history with Apple. This is a BAD THING, because if you start to have stranger issues down the road, and tell Apple you had X problem before, and they don't have a case or dispatch number to look up, you're "S.O.L.", as they say.
3. Charged for a battery, 'cause the service provider can't send a battery to Apple for no reason. (Think about it: You get a battery off of the shelf, and they send the defective/failed battery back to Apple. Apple didn't send one out, but they just got one back for some unknown and inappropriate reason. Apple to service provider: "WTF?")
Also, here's something else to consider which might not be apparent unless you've worked in retail-service situations before:
You order your stuff for the showfloor, FOR the showfloor. You order your demo units FOR the demo counters. You order service stuff--you get the point. You can always say, "I ordered twenty iBook power adapters for the shelf," and know that's how many you're going to have until people start buying them. You know how many you have to order, because a smart ordering guy will conference with the sales manager (and staff, depending on the size of the operation) and find out he needs to order another dozen because demand is trickling off as of the past month.
Service is a different beast. Sometimes, it has patterns similar to sales, most times it does/not./ If sales and service are pulling from the same pool of stuff, things will get hosed quickly. Some might say, "Why not talk to the service manager, too?" Well, that's great, if they can say, "We'll need X units from App--oh, shit, yeah, our ordering process is completely different, sales goes through a distributor and we don't, and we can't stock exchange parts. Never mind."
No, not all places go through Ingram. Some go through Apple directly. Not all. Even the ones who do face the rest of the other problems.
Efficient customer service requires an efficient, right-method-for-the-job, organized back-end.
I need service parts, I go through service channels/streamlined for service./
I need to sell someone something, I go through sales channels/streamlined for sales./
I need to get flamed, I post to/Slashdot./;-)
Anyway, those are my dual shiny, copper discs. Flame on.
Slashdot Mirror
First, there was the Profile4, the thing they tried to say was better than the iMac. Then, there was/is "RipMixRespect", strangely similar to Apple's "Rip. Mix. Burn."
/ 84 4767p-5933052c.html
... And EMagic, well, that's part of UMG.
;-)
http://newsobserver.com/24hour/technology/story
So did Apple just take a big, steaming dump all over Gateway?
It seems that Gateway includes music downloads with EMusic as a part of their promotions to get people to buy their boxes
That's kinda funny, when you think about it. I wonder what the Gateway higher-ups are thinking right now.
And really, what, if anything, does this mean for Gateway? Are they now advertising for Apple?
-/-
Mikey-San
Ah, but the same can be said of many, many, many Windows exploits.
It's not like the majority of Windows bugs appear out of nowhere and are patched in the next week/month/year/whenever MS feels like it. They sit there, unnoticed, for however long, and then they're trumpeted about and patched.
So while you say, "The samba root exploit ... went a decade without being patched," that's only because it was only a week ago that it was discovered.
The difference is in how it was dealt with. Microsoft like to, and they've said this publicly, sit on security problems until they've been announced by a third party. Usually, only then do the problems get fixed. For those in risk-sensitive environments, or anyone really concerned about security, this is a bit more than annoying. In 100% honest-to-the-mirror fact, Microsoft doesn't want you to know how your system is vulnerable until they've had a chance to announce a fix.
So excuse me if I have a problem with your comment. I use Mac OS X, and if I didn't have that, I'd be on straight-up FreeBSD or Linux. Windows can eat a fat one as far as I'm concerned.
-/-Mikey-San
Burninating karma at the speed of TROGDOR!
I'm really sorry, but I have to be the grammar dork this morning:
;-)
"Based on these criterion [...]"?
This is incorrect.
"Based on these criteria [...]"?
This is correct.
I mean, you wouldn't say, "Based on these fact," would you?
-/-
Mikey-San
Burninating karma at the speed of TROGDOR!
I try to, yes. ;-)
-/-
Mikey-San
This signature was designed to increase your load time by 0.001 seconds. Enjoy.
So that leaves you with what, Cyndi Lauper?
-/-
Mikey-San
Desperate and sad, you mean like when every other Slashdorker posts "hey, this story is a dupe" when someone makes a mistake?
The kettle and the pot called. They want their shit back.
-/-
I'm the Apple support contact for Virginia Commonwealth University. Before that, I worked for a retailer here in Richmond, CapitolMac, an Apple Specialist.
s t1 997.html
:-)
:-/
/consumer/ and not a service provider, if it were to come back a third time with something wrong, I'd start bitching for a complete replacement. Apple are usually good about taking care of their customers, so don't be afraid to ask what you're supposed to do if you get it back and it's still got a problem. (Don't be a pest (the customer reps are just customer reps, after all), but do ask if it concerns you.)
Apple, like other computer companies, use refurbished replacement parts at its discretion. They will never put a known-bad module in a customer's unit, ever, but as with even new parts, sometimes the replacement parts can fail. Apple, again like other companies, have refurbishing guidelines for service parts. In other words, they test 'em well.
Here is your warranty, and it does indeed say that they may use new or refurbished service parts:
http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/wty-po
It's also in your manual and AppleCare statement if you have one.
Now that I've said all of that junk, I'm sorry 'bout your Mac, dude.
As far as I know, no company refurbishes LCDs. They may take a PowerBook with a dead logic board, for example, and scrap it for its good LCD after testing it, but I don't think you can really go in and repair an LCD to spec.
As for your line-out, humans are humans. It's not impossible that someone repairing it could have knicked something on the logic board somewhere, but they test all of your ports before they send your unit out of Houston. If it arrived with the new port problem, it should have been sent right back with a phone call to AppleCare.
As for your replacement LCD, Apple Service guidelines state that an LCD with three dead pixels or six dead sub-pixels warrants replacement. If your replacement was that bad when it got to you, it should have been replaced again.
There's no official "after this many times, we replace your computer" policy, but speaking as a
-/-
I'm no LCD scientist (though, I can tell you how they're made, thanks Apple Service Training for Losers with No Fscking Life), but it seems to me like heavy low-frequency sound coming /through/ the LCD would alter its color accuracy, at the least.
:-)
Granted, I have to put a good amount of pressure on my LCD to make it change color deeply, but don't you think if heavy low-frequency sound came out of it, something would happen, at least occasionally? What about the almost paper-thin glass sandwiched in the LCD layers?
I dunno. Seems to me like sound was made for speakers, not a display medium.
Does anyone out there have more info about the crap I just wrote?
But due to the Service Pack update, IE took ten times longer to launch! ;-D
-/-
Mikey-San
Here's a neat tip for Flash ad filtering in Mozilla-based browsers:
0 21 127061854547
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20
Yay.
Bzzzzzz. Wrong.
& u=http://eibr.adfi.ucl.ac.be/apple/apple.misajour. anciens.os.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dpurchase%2Bsyst em%2B7%2Bmac%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3 DG
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr
Apple charged for system software before 7.5. I used to have System 6 floppies somewhere.
However, versions prior to 7.6 (7.5.5 and before) can be downloaded freely from ftp.apple.com--but this is today, not back during the days of their releases.
-/-
You're ignoring what Schiller said. Your logic was that they're sorta alternating.
/think/ that's how it went. At any rate, do you see a rough pattern here? Apple have released one "reference release" (paid upgrade) each year, with the exception of 2000, since System 7.5.
But look at the release dates of the major Mac OS releases (working backwards):
10.2 - 2002 - Paid
10.0 - 2001 - Paid
There was no major OS release in 2000, save for the OS X Public Beta, free except for $20 shipping.
Mac OS 9 - 1999 - Paid
Mac OS 8.5 - 1998 - Paid
Mac OS 8 - 1997 - Paid
Mac OS 7.6 - 1996 - Paid
Mac OS 7.5 - 1995 - Paid
At least, I
Whoa, whoa. What moron mod gave this +1, Funny? Someone new to Slashdot? This is a troll message that appears in every Apple thread.
I hope I get this one in meta moderation.
Morons.
-/-
Yeah, I know. My first thought when I saw "scroll-wheel" was "mouse", so I sorta ran with it. ... Into a wall, I guess. :-)
Karma to burn!
"On scroll-wheel iPods"? As opposed to the trackball iPods that are so popular? ;-)
-/-
Ask him, very specifically, about Apple's DRM stance.
"You've just recently been added to Apple's board of directors. What are your feeling towards Apple's customer-friendly, honesty-based stance on Digital Rights Management?"
-/-
Mikey-San
Submitted without a karma bonus for extra flavour!
Ah, but you can.
Create both "/Library/PDF Services" and "~/Library/PDF Services". Populate "/Library/PDF Services" with whatever you like. Those items should now appear in all users' Print dialogs.
It seems that you need the folder at the user level to get this to work.
-/-
Having going?
;)
This is twice in two days I've skipped the preview button, and been it's shown.
-/-
What I find even funnier than this comment is how--as of this reply--he's PLUS three, TROLL. :-D
That's like having going to the chair on good behaviour.
-/-
Mikey-San
I won't go into all of this, but one thing struck me:
/not fucking moving./ Keep in mind that I'm launching Photoshop, two browsers, and Entourage at the same time, while watching that window thumbnail.
"Visually impressive it may be - however, functionally it's fairly pointless. Apart from the *massive* overhead involved (a busy minimised terminal window will drag the entire GUI to a crawl"
Um. Crack smoking?
When a Terminal window is Docked, it does not update at all. I have "sudo fs_usage" running in a Terminal window which is in the Dock right now, and it's
*watches*
Nothing.
Top says Terminal is using 6% of the CPU. When I take it out of the Dock, it jumps as the window starts updating again.
Do some fucking research next time, flamer.
-/-
Mikey-San
And next time, I'll:
:)
A) Preview my posts;
2) And use <P> or <BR> tags so my posts are formatted well!
-/-
Mikey-San
http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1027-8-209262 22-1.html?tag=ld
Take it an run, people! :-)
-/-
Mikey-San
Actually, yeah, logistics issues hit us with that, too (replacing shelf stock with warranty parts after the fact).
The biggest one--I'd write more, but my lunch break is ending in a couple of minutes, sorry, man--is how we're shipped what we're shipped.
Order a replacement part from Apple or Dell. What does the box look like? Plain carboard, shipping labels, etc. (Airborne Express E-Z Ship labels, for example.)
Off the shelf, that new battery is in a nice box sans the shipping stuff we see in the back area.
An idea: "So open the box, give them the battery, replace it, and put it back on the shelf."
Well, then, something's sitting on the shelf that's been opened before, and isn't what was originally there. Honor system and doubt-benefitting aside, would you buy a new battery off of the shelf if it had been opened? You have no way to know, suddenly, and who knows what warranty implications that might have.
Might not have any.
Why introduce such a concern and potential headache? I don't buy opened cereal boxes even if I can't see holes in the bag inside and the stock boy assures me it's perfectly fine.
-/-
Let's do it your way:
..."
/those./"
/that/ stuff.
/complain to the source of the delay./ Getting uppity with the local shop puts an extra step in between that and your complaint getting to the manufacturer (yes, a good shop will bitch to the manufacturer when they can't get parts on time, don't worry about that ;-)) ... It also will get you an annoyed sales or service department.
;-)
Guy: "My battery isn't working right."
Dude: "Okay, lemme check it in and check it out for you."
Dude does his diagnosis. Battery is hosed. Replace battery, Dude says. Guy comes back the next day.
Dude yanks one off of the shelf.
Guy goes home.
Dude's internal service report reads: "Replaced battery with one from the shelf."
Dude: "Hey, Ordering Man, I replaced that Guy's battery with one of the twenty you ordered from the distributor instead of getting one specially shipped in from the manufacturer."
Ordering Man: "Okay, I'll pay our distributor with the reimbursement from the manufacturer."
Dude: "The manufacturer doesn't reimburse us for the warranty repair when they don't send us warranty parts. I mean, who would? They don't have any way to know for sure that we actually ordered something and did a repair."
Ordering Man: "So how do I pay our distributor?"
Dude: "Normally, we don't pay for the batteries we replace under warranty."
Ordering Man: "Where do you normally get your batteries?"
Dude: "The manufacturer. Is that a problem?"
Ordering Man: "Not as long as we pay our distributor."
Why does this sound like an episode of Bastard Operator from Hell? Because your "high and mighty, the customer should never understand that there are real people with real logistical problems on the other side of the counter" stance is just the kind of mindset that spawns classic BOFH stories.
Let's look at the scenario a little higher up the ladder.
Ordering Man: "Hey, Distributor Guy, we used three batteries as warranty replacements."
Distributor Guy: "What the fuck are you smoking? We pay the manufacturer for those! Where's our money for those!?"
Ordering Man: "You mean the manufacturer--"
Distributor Guy: "Of course not, you asshat! Do we look like a service provider? Where. Is. Our. Money."
Ordering Man: "We're keeping our customers irresponsibly happy!"
Distributor Guy: "And you're making our lawyers happy. Money, please."
Or from another angle:
Distributor Guy: "Here's our monthly invoices."
Manufacturer looks over the NET-30s.
Distributor Guy: "These ten thousand batteries here, they're warranty replacements. Please give us that money back."
Manufacturer: "You were talking about smoking crack earlier
Oh, wait!
It doesn't always work that way in retail! Sometimes, the person above you doesn't get paid until you sell things! (See Bungie's old Rant on how video games get shelf space for more goodies here.) So you might think that this solves the problems itself, right? On the contrary, it causes more!
So we have this scene instead:
Distributor Guy: "Here's our monthly invoices."
Manufacturer looks over the NET-30s.
Distributor Guy: "These ten thousand batteries here, they're warranty replacements. We don't need to pay you for
Manufacturer invoices Distributor, who is $100,000 short because of warranty replacements. Distributor, meanwhile, invoices all of those local shops doing replacements with store stock for that $100,000. Well, the local shops can't/don't/won't/shouldn't pay because the customer didn't pay anything--it was under warranty each time.
Local Shops say to Manufacturer, "Give us this money, so we can pay Distributor, who can then pay you!"
I won't even get into lines of credit and all of the messes that come with
How is this remotely good for you, the end-consumer? Is it really so hard to understand these kinds of logistical concerns from that side of the counter?
Seems like it. I have to explain this more and more these days, as people want EVERYTHING IN TWO SECONDS FLAT. They can't hold on to their machine while the new battery arrives and eliminates all of these problems (and thus, reducing your beloved shop and manufacturer's internal costs and troubles, IN TURN making your shit cheaper in the long and short run), because that just "isn't good customer service". I can't tell you how many times a loaner computer has been demanded of me because of a dispatch (mailed-in) repair or I'm repairing a machine that isn't functional. By your logic, I should just give the guy a new computer off the shelf!
Part of good customer service is the good customer. Someone once told me that, and it's the complete truth. In this world, you get what you give.
If you're upset with a shop's service, they DO have an obligation to make it right. If you're an asshole, making un-thought-out and unreasonable demands, they have the right to be human and watch you walk out of the door.
Instead of acting like a toddler and taking your toys home, if it takes more than a few business days to get that battery,
We're humans, Goddamnit. Treat us like we are, and understand that we don't like waiting a week for a part we should get overnight or within two business days, either. "Just give me one off of the shelf" is a more complicated imperative than it seems.
-/-
Mikey-San
This is how inventory works in retail-service shops.
/not./ If sales and service are pulling from the same pool of stuff, things will get hosed quickly. Some might say, "Why not talk to the service manager, too?" Well, that's great, if they can say, "We'll need X units from App--oh, shit, yeah, our ordering process is completely different, sales goes through a distributor and we don't, and we can't stock exchange parts. Never mind."
/streamlined for service./
/streamlined for sales./
/Slashdot./ ;-)
The regular Slashdot "I know more than you, here's how it should be" people will chime in, but I don't give a shit. I've been doing this for years.
If my ordering guy orders twenty PowerBook G4 batteries to put on the shelf, I can't just take one and stick it in someone's machine and call it a day when I need to replace a battery.
Doing so adds extra fucked-upedness to my ordering guy's inventory system, and DOES NOT integrate with Apple's Global Service Exchange system for tracking and completing repairs. It's not meant to.
Apple has its own DIRECT channels--that's right, kiddies, most of the stuff you see in the store comes not from the manufacturer directly, but a wholesaler like Ingram Micro--to get service parts to service providers.
By using the in-place service system and channels, the customer gets:
1. Service that's integrated tightly with Apple.
2. The ability to track their own repair on Apple.com.
3. To avoid middle men like Ingram Micro. They suck. Hard.
Doing it the "give me one off of the shelf, you stupid lackey" way gets you:
1. Nowhere.
2. Absolutely no record of your computer ever having been repaired by a service provider; your machine won't have any history with Apple. This is a BAD THING, because if you start to have stranger issues down the road, and tell Apple you had X problem before, and they don't have a case or dispatch number to look up, you're "S.O.L.", as they say.
3. Charged for a battery, 'cause the service provider can't send a battery to Apple for no reason. (Think about it: You get a battery off of the shelf, and they send the defective/failed battery back to Apple. Apple didn't send one out, but they just got one back for some unknown and inappropriate reason. Apple to service provider: "WTF?")
Also, here's something else to consider which might not be apparent unless you've worked in retail-service situations before:
You order your stuff for the showfloor, FOR the showfloor. You order your demo units FOR the demo counters. You order service stuff--you get the point. You can always say, "I ordered twenty iBook power adapters for the shelf," and know that's how many you're going to have until people start buying them. You know how many you have to order, because a smart ordering guy will conference with the sales manager (and staff, depending on the size of the operation) and find out he needs to order another dozen because demand is trickling off as of the past month.
Service is a different beast. Sometimes, it has patterns similar to sales, most times it does
No, not all places go through Ingram. Some go through Apple directly. Not all. Even the ones who do face the rest of the other problems.
Efficient customer service requires an efficient, right-method-for-the-job, organized back-end.
I need service parts, I go through service channels
I need to sell someone something, I go through sales channels
I need to get flamed, I post to
Anyway, those are my dual shiny, copper discs. Flame on.
-/-
Mikey-San