I went to an Apple store for the first time today to get advice on a cracked screen for an iPad2. The whole experiece was very ordinary. I was told the price - which as expected was a large sum of money - and got a replacement. What I didn't expect, though, was I had to deal with a "genius" at the "genius bar". How pretentious is this? What sort of company calls its technical support staff "geniuses"? I felt embarassed for the poor guy who had to act in the guise of a "genius". I wish Apple would do everyone a favour and just call their support staff technicians or give them some other, more understated, title. Hopefully no other company follows this lead. What's next? Sales staff that are called "gurus" that operate behind the "guru counter"? Does anyone else find this pretentious or is it just me?

I think it's pretentious, but not something I'd get worked up about.

I find any company that would replace what I broke at deep discount kind of extraordinary. If there are others that do likewise, I'd happily buy from them, too, if they sell stuff I want.

Yep!!!

Sent from my Verizon Black 64GB iPad 2 With IOS 5.01 Update From NYC using iPF

I kind of like it. It shows some pride. It sets expectations not only for the customer but for the technician. If sometimes those expectations are not met, that's still a lot better than being just another tech in just another store working for just another company.

Reminds me of a story. On my first day of graduate school at an ivy league university, coming from a small liberal arts college, I walked into a professor's office and to the fellow sitting at his desk said, "Dr. Hacker?"

"That's MR. Hacker. Want to know why?" he replied. I'm not sure I even replied, having been suitably intimidated.

"We're all Mr's here. Because we're all Dr's here," he said.

In those days they were all "Mr's." Fortunately, the world has changed and many are now "Ms's."

P.S. I never had to ask my parents to call me by my first name. They weren't too impressed by my doctorate when they found out I couldn't prescribe drugs. Although my father later decided I must be running some kind of scam when he asked me how many hours my university required me to teach and I told him six hours. He snorted, "Only six hours a day?" "No, Dad, six hours a week." I think he later passed away assuming I must have some kind of illicit scam to bring enough money home to support a family.

I'd bet the concept and use of the term "Genius Bar" was conceived and intended in the same light-hearted and symbolic way as "Geek Squad".

I must admit I have a huge amount of respect for doctors (medical or anyone that has earnt a PhD) and I also have a lot of respect for people who have to deal with the public, particularly if it's in any area involving complaints. And I guess that's way I always try to be courteous and polite. However, I don't have a lot of respect for someone with a genius name tag that sits behind a counter emblazoned with the word "GENIUS" who looks up a database and tells me the cost of my cracked screen with be $HK1,488. I know it's a very small issue, but I just think it's a silly title and I'm surprised it doesn't attract more derision.

I wonder what your level of respect would've been if they'd replaced your screen for free.

Hi Dave - It would be the same level of respect. I'd just prefer if it was done by a "shop assistant" or a "technician" or a "sales representative". It's not the sort of work that requires a "genius". I just think it's poor form to give anyone a grandiose and pretentious job title and, as I said, I'm surprised it doesn't attract more derision. Maybe my view is tainted by the fact that , unlike I guess the vast majority of people that access this site, I'm not an Apple fan. It's a company that really puts the screws on every company in its supply chain and even denies retailers a decent sales margin. I guess that's why Apple's gross profit margin is so high and it's able to accumulate so much cash on its balance sheet.

Exactly. We see what we expect. All people have a strong tendency to interpret things in ways that reinforces what they already know and believe. That goes as much for those of use who like Apple as those that dislike them.

Even when we recognize our biases, we are not entirely free of them.

I don't consider myself an Apple fan. I have a bunch of their gadgets because they happen to work well for me. But if there's a better alternative, I'll buy that next time. At the moment, for instance, I'm waiting for the sale of a Samsung phone, and I recently replaced my laptop with another Lenovo ThinkPad.

About half of iPad owners use PCs, so I don't think everyone's an Apple fan. There are a lot of iPad fans on this forum, obviously. But to say that people must be OK with the "genius" label because they're Apple fans is probably inaccurate. I doubt most people care.

I do care about how Apple is squeezing every drop out of suppliers. I would like an alternative, but don't see a good one for my uses right now.

Just for the record, I'm happy to let anyone who spends their days dealing with the public in a retail setting call themselves anything they like. "Savior" if that's their choice. I also suspect that there may be a difference in cultural expectations here. As sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory suggest, "genius" is as much a term of derision (light hearted hopefully) as respect in American culture. I suspect that might not be quite the case in Hong Kong.

Well, to be accurate I'd have to say that in my years as an academic I seldom had less than a 60 hour work week. The six hours a week of teaching says more about the priority major universities assign to teaching than to the expectations about the amount of effort professors are expected to devote to their jobs...at least until they get tenure.

This reminded me of a hilarious 1970s Cantopop song from Hong Kong, "Genius and Idiot":

http://ponytone.com/streams/Hong Kong/Genius and Idiot.mp3

By Sam Hui: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hui

Sorry, no English lyrics, but the hook is "Who's a genius? Who's an idiot?"

Right On

The word "pretentious" used by the original poster describes my experience in the Apple store precisely. I interacted with several apple employees and in each case they acted like they were sent from heaven to convert my technically ignorant soul to the "Apple Way". Give me a break. I was building, programming, and operating computers before their parents had teeth.