Ever since I got my new powerbook, I had a small problem with the keyboard. If I hit the space key lightly at the edge, it wouldn’t work. Last week, I went to the Apple store in Burlingame to have it looked at. I went to the “Genius bar” and demonstrated the problem to the “genius”.

Me: You see, if I push the space bar like this, it doesn’t work.. (lightly pushes the edge of the space)

Genius: (Mashes the space bar in the middle) Works for me.

Me: No, you have to gently push the edge like this (demonstrates again)

Genius: (Again mashing the space bar in the middle) Well, I type very hard.

Me: That’s great, it’s not your laptop. I type lightly.

Genius: Well, we’ll have to send it back to Apple to be fixed.

Well, that wasn’t going to work. I felt that since I just bought the damn thing I wasn’t going to send it back to Apple for the keyboard. As it turns out, Burlingame wasn’t equipped to do any maintenance, so I had to take it to the store in downtown San Francisco.

I went last Sunday, and it was a very cool place. It was kind of like being inside of a new G5 and I felt that I wasn’t cool enough to be in the place, but I registered for a genius and before I knew it, my name appeared on the three flat screen monitors above the bar.
My genius proceeded to tear the space bar off the keyboard and then disappeared. A few minutes later, he came out, and the space bar was worse. Now it wouldn’t advance no matter how hard you pushed the corners. Even pushing the center was hit or miss. Clearly, this wasn’t effective, and he said I’d probably have to take it in. Then he spotted another keyboard, and decided to give it another shot. When he came back, the grin on his face indicated that he had fixed the problem, and my simple test proved that he had. I was very grateful to this diligent genius, and as I type this post –hitting the space bar lightly– my gratitude only increases.

So, I hope that the Apple has more of the latter genius –someone who works hard to help the customer rather than the arrogant it-works-for-me behavior of the Burlingame genius. After all, Apple is ostensibly concerned about the user experience, and being taken seriously is certainly in my interest.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 28th, 2005 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.