MikeBrum.com

I decided on Monday that I wanted to buy a MacBook Pro. Since I have to pay tax anyway (since Apple has brick-and-mortar stores in Mass), I figured I’d just go to the Apple Store and buy it there. Shipping is free if I got it online, but the price is the same. Might as well succumb to instantaneous gratification, right?

So I get there, play with the MBP for a while, bump my decision from 99% to 100% and seek out some gaggle of Apple Store employees to actually make the purchase.

I’m not sure if it’s just all the blow that’s going up their noses or what, but the level of faux enthusiasm makes me throw up in my mouth a bit.

I have to say that I’m an informed consumer. I do my research and I tend to know exactly what I both want and need. If I was able to walk up to a counter to finalize the sale and not engage an associate on the floor, I would have. I think my refusal to pop giant boners over the purchase of a laptop makes them sad.

All that said and done, the transaction was started and he told me that my RAM upgrade might “take an hour or two”. Seriously? It’s like 8 screws. Shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. Hell, bring me the RAM and I’ll do it faster. A few mins after that he told me that they didn’t even have the RAM for the upgrade.

He gave me a bunch of options – all basically resulting in me either spending more money or having to wait a bunch of days before getting the laptop. At that that point, the idle small talk and the imposed overbearing enthusiasm (which I frankly didn’t share) was too much and I told him that I’d just order it online and be done with it.

Am I excited? Kinda, but just because I’m getting “a new toy”. The fact that it’s “a Mac” doesn’t increase the excitement in any way, shape or form. The reason that it’s a Mac is because of purely practical reasons for what I’m looking to accomplish.

I really wasn’t aware that there was a free reach-around with the purchase of every piece of Apple hardware. Thanks – but I’ll pass.