Adventures at the mall

[fbhjr]

I guess it’s good I made an appointment to see an Apple repair person. You
can reserve a spot on line up to 4 days in advance. So, I got a spot at
6:45 and we headed off.
I expected I’d have to drop off the laptop and come get it in a few days as
happened last fall when the fan needed replacement.

I asked my wife to come with me to keep me company and in case it needed a
lot of expensive work to discuss the use/cost issue. And, the fact she’s
got more than a decade of Mac IT service experience doesn’t hurt.

We got there at 6:35. About 7:05 I got to see the tech. After convincing
him to repair it, and finding it was under warrantee for another 42 hours,
he said “It will take 45 minutes to an hour. I will certainly be done
before we close.” It was about 7:30 at that point. It is 20 minutes each
way to the house. So, my wife and I decided to stay.

We set off for the food court. This mall is one of the ones I went to a
lot when growing up. Back in the late 60’s early 70’s it was a favorite of
my sister and me. It had a discount toy store (me), a store with a large
number of leather purses (my sister) and a good book store (both). It was
not an upscale mall with its Sears, York Steak House and non-working
fountain.

Now, it is a very upscale mall. They have added at least two major
expansions since I was a kid, one of them to add a second floor to it. The
only store still there from when I was a kid is Sears. They’ve gone from
being the highest end store to the lowest at the same mall. The upshot of
this is: the food court is not where I thought it was so we walked around
more than intended.

You can tell how upscale a mall is by the food court. The Indian place we
got our food at was very good. Better than some full Indian restaurants
we’ve been to. The two sushi places looked good too, but we hadn’t had
Indian in a while.

After eating, we went and sat by the very large, working, fountain near the
Apple store.
At 8:30 I went and asked.
“Fifteen more minutes,” they told me.
Thinking they closed at 9, and it would be done before they closed, I said
OK.
At nine I was told “just a little bit more” and that they closed at 10.
I bought some other options for the machine while I waited. I’ve decided
to give up on Microsoft office on the laptop. The Apple suite costs a lot
less and at least seems to do just as much. We’ll see. I can always put
Office back on.

At 9:30 I went up to the scheduling woman. She was a fairly tiny woman by
a computer in the center of the room.
“It’s been two hours,” I said. “I was told one. Can you let me know when
I’m going to get my computer?”
She looked at her schedule.
“It’s been ready for a while,” she said. “But, it needs the final check by
our tech before they can bring it out.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll stand here and wait.”
She looked up at me. I looked down at her.
“I’ll go see if I can get them to do the check,” she said.
It took her about 10 minutes, but she got it and brought it out to me.

By the time it was all done, we didn’t leave the mall until quarter of 10.
My wife hates the mall.
There was stuff she wanted to get done.
But, she sat there and kept me company the whole time.
That was very nice of her. And, I appreciate it a lot.
I had offered to wait there while she went home, but both of us hadn’t
thought it worth it when they said an hour. I probably should have
realized if they’re 15 minutes late for a scheduled appointment, they won’t
be on time for the rest of it either.
But, I hadn’t thought they’d be off by more than double.

It was very useful having my wife there to talk with the tech. When he was
going through the list of things to check, she was able to keep saying
“tried that”. After a couple I said to him “she works for IT with Macs,
not me.” He was ready to offer her a job there, but she said what she had
now was too good.

The tech we talked to was a guy I’d guess was in his early 50’s with
rainbow colored hair. The guy who sold me the accessories I bought was
also a mature man with his arms were covered with tattoos I could tell were
no more than a year or two old. (When I asked he said “I had a mid life
crisis. I decorated myself.”) A good percentage of the folks working
there were women.
I like that about the Apple store people. Apple makes a big show of being
different. I’m glad to see it actually reflected in the people they have
there.

We didn’t get home until my usual bed time. I tried to go to sleep, really
I did. But, I knew the laptop was sitting there needing a configure and
reinstall of software.
At least I know what kept me up last night.
My wife did come and stay with me in the living room while I worked on it.
She slept while I went through a lot to remember passwords I set up two
years ago, then reset the whole wireless system on both computers when I
couldn’t.
But, again, it was nice she was there.

Comments

[morgan-lafaye.livejournal.com]

She's a good little bear, for I know how much she HATES malls.

[yebo.livejournal.com]

Selfish of me, I know, but I'm glad to hear that she won't be taking the job with them ;)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It was funny, she said "I won't give up my cushy job."
He said "even for this pushy one?"

They weren't shirking when they took so long for my laptop. They were just that busy. And, I'm told the weekends there isn't room to move in the store.
I don't think she'd like that much.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

yay glad things worked out. She gets major brownie points for putting up with the wait.