Sometimes a reader will post a pertinent comment on an older story, and the information just stays hidden. That’s what just occurred with a comment posted about the changes made earlier this summer in Genius Bar operations. “Long Time Genius” said the Genius Bar workload has been increasing, and that Apple’s procedures changes have made the backlog of repairs even worse. Even worse, “Work/Life balance use to be something Apple was truly concerned with, at least at my store. Not anymore,” the person says. “Someone’s corporate job is riding on this,” the commenter says, “but they are still pushing this nightmare forward like it’s best idea we’ve had since the iPod.” The sad part, of course, is that there are thousands of dedicated Apple retail employees still trying to “surprise and delight” their customers, but cannot. The ironic part is that there are so many customers, as Apple becomes a more popular computer platform. Long Time Genius concludes, “We have lost our core. We use to say our number one resource, our soul, is our people. Well now our number one resource, our soul is our staffed bar hours and nothing else matters.”
The Genius Bar Pressure Is High
Subscribe / Share
As someone else that knows, all I can say is that he is exactly right. Everything he said is true.
I wish I could say its not true. I love Apple, I have for a very long time. It’s hard to have a retail job and have a balance in your personal life. Apple used to seem like this was a “core” part of their working style. A balance between work and personal life, the quality of life per say. No with this new initiative, they kind of set that all aside, saying that its the best thing for the customer, but what about their employees? They don’t understand that we love the company and that’s why we push forward, not that we’re doing it for the company. A lot of us are thinking that it will blow over, that this like other things they have tried will be recognized as “not the best way” I have several members on my team that have families, wives and husbands that don’t understand why we do it. They miss us at home, our shifts start at 10 or 11 AM and end at 11 pm or even 12 am. There is no concern with the quality of the genius life. . .
The Genius job isn’t anymore what is was one year before… Now we have a Work/Work balance… The Work/Life balance is gone…