A Review of Bartending

It's a funny thing, working at the Apple Store.

I just finished reading Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius, which is effectively everything promised in the title. It's a very brief read, and I'd encourage anyone interested in the day-to-day of life as an Apple Genius to check it out.

Or, alternatively, I could tell you about Apple life.

Now, I was also behind the Bar for some of the same time that Stephen Hackett was--as a GYO tech specialist to handle the influx of new iPhone customers--and also out on the floor as a sales rep at the launch of the original iPhone, and the launch of OS X Leopard. A lot of the stories are brief sketches that ring hilariously true to me--like how most Geniuses get accidentally exposed to rather a lot of customer porn--but this format feels more like the stories pretty much all of us Ungenuised folks can tell at the bar (the one with booze). They're context free vignettes, for the most part, and while that's entertaining, it's not particularly unique to Apple or retail in general.

My own Apple story isn't especially interesting--though I do have the added filter of being referred to as Hawaii's only "Girl Genius" at the time--but I feel like the book skips a few of the things that happen to you when you join Apple.

The first thing that happens is immersion in the Apple community. Apple's training program for new employees is very, very good, and in addition to giving you some pretty incredible Jedi Mind Tricks for working with customers, it ratchets up your enthusiasm for Apple to dizzying levels. I went from a pretty standard Mac geek to a Kool-aid drinking Apple evangelist. At that time, nearly everyone at my store was the same way, as were quite a few of our customers. I knew members of the local MUG; I spent the majority of my days demoing cool features, talking about Apple products, speaking with people who really believed their computers and phones and iPods had changed their life for the better. It's kind of an incredible community of people to belong to. The book really bypasses that process, and combined with a lot of the negative stories in the book, it reads a bit as bitterness.

Not that it was all puppies and sunshine at Apple--I did quit after just six months, during the holiday season (albeit for fewer hours, better pay, and a tuition waiver for grad school)--and everything the book lays out is true: customers, sometimes, can be really obnoxious. I had a woman start screaming at me on the floor (involving two managers) because I asked her if she was going to get Applecare for her laptop. A man once dumped an entire bubble tea onto a peripherals display when I informed him his jailbroken, unlocked iPhone clearly running on T-Mobile was not in warranty. Casual racism and sexism from customers was pretty much par for the course. And, of course, out in the Red Zone (main sales floor), pretty much every day we'd have at least a few customers try to buy somewhere north of 20 iPhones in cash for resale overseas (in Honolulu, we had a large international tourist community), and who would ask to write down serial and IMEI numbers so they could check their viability with their funders. One of whom, after hearing me say "no," proceeded to berate me in Tagalog and follow up with "You are bad at your job, bad woman, bad person." I had a guy try to use a stolen credit card (passed off as "my girlfriend's") to purchase about $10 grand in laptops (three tricked out 17" MacBook Pros).

So, you know, it was retail, not magic. Some things are just true any time you work with The Public--the hours suck, the attitudes suck, the benefits suck, and quite often all you can do is stand there and deal with someone else's temper tantrum. I know very few people equipped to work retail long term, as a full-on career choice, and coming to that realization--breaking up with Apple, as the book puts it--is a more compelling story than just reciting the funny, the heartwarming, and the frustrating anecdotes.

The other core thing I think the book is missing is some necessary table-setting. Apple stores have their own lingo and ops, and while much of that's under NDA (which many of us treated as if Steve Jobs was going to come and burn our house down if we violated it), other things work to set the scene and fill in some background. At my store, the back of house was always pretty bumping. With folks on their lunch breaks or 15 minutes, Geniuses, the Biz team, one or two MODs, the inventory guys, and team members constantly clocking in or out, it would have been great to get a sense of that flow. It also serves to highlight, a bit, some of the reasons behind what Apple does in the retail space, and why it works.

So, it's an entertaining read, but not necessarily insightful--you won't find out any deep secrets of the Genius Bar, or how to get your computer replaced out of warranty, or learn anything particularly unique about Apple's retail operations. You'll get some fun stories about one guy's job.

Shawn Blanc Reviews the iPad (3)

Very nice journal style review.

I suppose I'm pretty committed to my iPad 2 for another 11 months or so; but every single time I see that Retina display I get serious tech-envy. Stupid cross-country move and need to have a stockpile of cash on hand...

Life Changer

As pretty much everyone’s “Apple Friend,” I am typically pressed into service as a one-woman Apple store (minus the crazy revenue) whenever any one of my friends buys a new iPhone, iPad, or Mac. I answer questions, demo accessories, do light tech support, training, etc. Since this is the season for new Apple products, I have a couple friends who have finally picked up their first iPads. Most of them have asked me the same question, indirectly or directly:

So, why is this amazing?

I think I might answer this incorrectly a lot of the time. When I get it, I talk about apps I love. I talk about things I do. I frame it in terms of why I find this amazing, and it’s not actually addressing the real issue.

When I got my iPad on day one of the initial launch (10th in line!), I brought it home, turned it on, and…kind of just hung out with it. I bought a 64Gb wifi model, thinking I’d do all kinds of things with it–watch lots of movies! Draw! Listen to music all the time!

None of these things really came to pass the way I envisioned them. I do some of them to various extents, but the apps available for the iPad have redirected my use in ways I couldn’t see at the time I bought my first iPad. The apps are great, but they’re not the answer to the question.

What makes the iPad amazing–at least as far as I can tell–is that it so stubbornly resists pigeonholing as “a device that does X.” I suspect that the main reason so many people struggle in the first few days to understand what it does is that it doesn’t really do anything inherently. It’s effectively a tabula rasa of technology–as limitless and intimidating as the blank page in front of the writer, the empty canvas in front of an artist. The difference, of course, is that this blank page cost $500+ and there’s a lot of anxiety from the beginning that maybe that money should have been spent on Apple stock instead.

So what’s one to do, with this thing that’s cool and all, but not really selling itself as a life-changing device right out of the box? Ultimately, I think the answer is “use it and find out what happens.” Every Apple product I’ve had makes a persuasive case for itself over time–sometimes more slowly than others, but eventually, the moment arrives when suddenly, this thing is indispensible.

My moment, when I first got my iPad, came about two or three weeks after I’d bought it. It’s pretty innocuous–I’d caught a cold and stayed home sick from work. The iPad was my companion for the day, and I spent much of the day napping, reading, checking my work email for some variety of emergency (even though I don’t do anything so important that it can’t wait six hours), and watching embarrassing amounts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix streaming. Sure, I could have done all of that with my laptop, but not comfortably, and not without setting up my laptop somewhere to charge. Is it a minor situation? Yeah, certainly, and it’s a little weird to have an epiphany in the middle of a NyQuil-induced haze (or, maybe not–I’ve had some weird, weird dreams doped up on the green stuff), but that’s when I realized that this thing was legitimately amazing.

I use my iPad to meet a lot of my needs–a small, easy to whip out and turn on writing machine; my primary method of reading news and books; a small screen to watch TV shows only I want to watch in our household, or clips from last night’s Daily Show on my morning commute. It’s nothing like how any of my other friends use theirs–some of them are actual artists and musicians who use their iPads for those purposes, and some of them use it for just reading and spending time on Facebook. The tasks themselves don’t have any worth, it’s the ease and ubiquity and amorphous nature of the device that make it amazing.

Shutting off the Firehose

My Month without RSS Feeds

Aside from my resolution to stop chewing my nails, my overall goal for 2012 is largely to simplify and declutter much of my life; specifically, the digital parts of my routine. Today I’m performing a bit of an expiriment in that vein, by ceasing to use my RSS reader to monitor 100+ feeds.

Why Ditch RSS?

My complaints about RSS are pretty much the same complaints everyone has–it feels like a to-do list, it creates a self-selected echo chamber, and it probably doesn’t make me all that much more informed. Instead, it creates a task I have to complete at the beginning and end of my day–clear my feeds out, process my news articles in such a way that I ensure I don’t miss anything, and prioritize information according to the volume of the feed/category. Heavy news cycles–especially CES and Macworld (I mainly read tech news)–are actively stressful, and if I allow my news feeds to languish for a few days because I’m a) traveling, b) working, or c) spending time with my loved ones, well, that’s just a disaster.

My RSS client of choice, Reeder, is pretty much the most efficient and powerful RSS reader I’ve used; it allows me to manage my feeds reasonably easily, skim headlines, and send everything I want to read over to Instapaper for later attention. At the same time, though, it’s designed to help users manage their own self-inflicted information problem, and it does so very well…but I’ve decided to address the problem at its root.

The Information DTs

Of course, going “all dark” on news is a bit too much for me to handle without suffering some serious withdrawal, so I’ve decided that maybe I just need to change the ecosystem. As a result, I’m switching most of my news sources to Twitter for use in Flipboard. Same volume, but with a more engaging interface, social components, and no more “you must read this NOW or be punished with 750 unread articles.” More importantly, Flipboard and Twitter just lend themselves so well to serendipitous reading in a way that blogs rarely do–it’s why Twitter is largely my social network of choice.

Mainly, though, I think this approach will wean me off needing to read or be peripherally aware of hundreds of headlines a day, and switch me over to reading the news, when I want to read it, without a lot of task management. And really, that’s all I want.

Next Up: Facebook

I would really like to pull off Facebook in 2012. I’m tired of the privacy hoops, for one, and I suspect that will only get worse now that Facebook is going public. Moreover, the signal-to-noise ratio for my facebook, at least, is pretty low…but it’s still an entertainment source for me.

The problem, of course, is that everyone is on Facebook. A lesser but significant issue for me, too, is how many of my accounts are tied to my Facebook profile–everything from Pinterest to Words With Friends hooks into my Facebook profile. That said…I keep getting the nagging sensation that I should be spending less time sifting through Facebook updates and more time on being an actually good friend. I’m still figuring out how to extricate myself from the monster’s grip, but I plan to get there.

Things That Didn't Suck in 2011

A retrospective of Things that Didn't Suck in 2011

I Recommitted to Taking Care of My Body

This encompasses three things, really. I lost a ton of weight--dropped from a size 12 to a size 6--which was my initial New Years resolution. The activities that got me there were initially secondary considerations; the objective was just to get skinny again.

Then something happened around the 4 month mark--I started to like running (after the 3 mile marker, that is--I still hate mile 2). I joined an absolutely fantastic yoga studio. I remembered that I actually enjoy cooking, and I'm pretty good at it, and 90% of my cooking is vegetarian anyways. Mainly, I just started to remember what it was like to live in my own body again--the one that was in shape and healthy, not struggling with a lot of garbage and negativity.

2011 Song Associated with This Thing that Didn't Suck: The Go! Team, "The Running Range" -- I can run up mountains to this song, and it makes up about 1/3 of my total running playlist.

Another Year in San Diego

This was really the year that East Village came into its own as a neighborhood, I think--there's definitely been a change in the vibe in the community, and the long-promised local businesses finally began cropping up outside the immediate vicinity of the ballpark. New clothing stores moved in, Monkey Paw opened up a couple blocks from my house, Knotty Barrel has proven to be a solid and mellow alternative to the now seriously overpacked beer bars, and I've seen a few new fitness studios move in, as well.

More importantly, though, I just love seeing this town. I love running through Seaport Village and seeing sailboats and aircraft carriers, I love seeing the skyline from the airport harbor, I love running through Balboa Park (basically, I have some amazing running routes).

2011 Song Associated with This Thing that Didn't Suck: M83, "Midnight City" -- The city is my church is pretty much exactly how I feel every time I get a glimpse of the skyline lighting up around dusk, or look out at blue sky meeting blue ocean just beyond the cozy beach neighborhoods.

5 Years Without a Murder Suicide

Yeah, I'm not sure how we managed it either. We marked the occasion with new anniversary wedding bands (now with 100% less warping!), a trip to San Francisco, some fancy scotch, and 6 months living together in the same house (which is a record for us, I think).

2011 Song Associated with This Thing that Didn't Suck: St. Vincent, "Northern Lights" -- There's no particular lyrical significance to this, but it's rare for the two of us to like the same music. When Wes came back, we started listening to albums straight through together; this is the first album I chose for listening, and the first song where Wes popped his head up to say "hey, this is really pretty good. I like it."

Laser Eyeballs

One of those things I've always been defined by is my crappy vision. I lost my eyesight in a hurry (like, over a weekend) when I was about 8, and from that point I embarked on a life of spending crap-tons of money on eyeglasses, contact lenses, and Excedrin to manage my near constant eyestrain headaches.

So, I had PRK done earlier this year. It's basically the best decision I ever made; I still occasionally stop, look around at the texture of my environment, and appreciate that I can see it unassisted. It also gave me a week to recover from a very difficult summer, and hang out with my mom again.

As a byproduct, I also got a lot more serious about personal financial management--this is the first time I've ever really saved and budgeted towards a specific thing.

2011 Song Associated with This Thing that Didn't Suck: Wild Flag, "Electric Band" -- This album was officially released the day after my surgery; I spent a fair amount of time lying on the bed/couch with my eyes closed and my headphones in, listening to this on repeat and wishing it was Sleater-Kinney.