joaoflux / digital / analog / culture

I have a small problem with my MacBook Pro: Stains on the screen. They are growing, not fast, more like cancer in an old persons body. By now they have almost stopped annoying me. Ironically one of the reasons for replacing my old MacBook was that it had a similar kind of stain on it’s screen since a candle had been placed near it. That one wasn’t growing. It wasn’t like cancer, it was an injury. Unfortunately the shape of the stain only reminded of a heart, not of Virgin Mary or Jesus or some other religious symbol that would have allowed to make money by selling it to a believer on eBay. At least getting it replaced was pretty straight forward and only involved writing some letters to the insurance company.

With the screen cancer things are more complicated. Apple has a policy about replacing parts: They send the part to a partner who is entitled to replace it. They do not announce when the part will be sent and once the Apple partner receives it, he has to send it back, if he can’t replace it within a few (I think three) days. I happen to travel a lot and three screens had to be sent back by now. My Apple dealer (who has been very helpful so far) suggested that I should call Apple support and talk my way through the call center.

Of course I prepared myself to spend some time in the waiting loop. The music sucked. Trying to have a positive attitude, I told myself how nice it was that Apple seemed to respect my privacy and does not match the music with my iTunes purchasing profile. Then I remembered that I never bought anything there despite having an account (for publishing podcasts). A terrible suspicion grew in me: Maybe they use the Scorpions (or something that sounded much like them) to punish me for not spending money in the iTunes Store. After a while it occurred to me that this would not be Apple’s way of disciplining heretics like myself. They would probably implement a system that lets you choose whether you want to buy the last song directly from within the support hot line (press #1), listen to another song before speaking to someone (press #2) or call another time (press #3). It was hard to believe that Steve Jobs had not come up with that idea before I did. Looking at the stains on my screen I thought that they might just have technical problems setting up such a system. The explanation seemed satisfying.

On my first attempt I managed to talk my way up the hierarchy of the call center and even managed to have somebody organize that I would have a screen waiting for me at an apple partner after getting back from a two week trip. He said that he was going to call me in the next days to confirm it.

When I got back, I called Apple again. After the obligatory Scorpions overdose I even got to talk to the same person who now told me that he had not been able to organize the screen for me and that there was nothing he could do for me. I once more started fantasizing about a Lenovo Thinkpad with Ubuntu Linux. Trying to imagine a life without Omni Outliner and Quicksilver I lost my temper. I threatened the poor guy in Ireland that I was a blogger and that I would get even and that I would urge my client who had bought some 20 Macs in the past year to join me on my adventurous trip to Ubuntuland. Considering the three regular readers of my blog and the hard fight it was liberate at least some of my client’s employees from a restrictive Novell / Windows environment in the first place, I knew it was an empty threat, but - it worked! He gave me a number at Apple Germany in Munich and even reminded me of his name in case someone asked. At Apple Germany they told me that it wasn’t the right number, but gave me another number (at Apple Europe in Ireland) and told me I should leave a message on the answering machine, if no one answered. This time there was no waiting line and no free music listening. I left a message and within 15 minutes I received a call.

Now everything is organized and I have a screen waiting for me. The guy from Apple’s European head quarters has called twice since , making sure that everything was fine. I’m glad I can continue to use a system that lets me connect any printer any time, instead of going on adventures. Even an iPhone seems realistic now (after I had made up my mind about hating it, before I even touched one). A friend just hacked his and uses it with a German provider now. Of course it is a scandal that a hack is needed, but what the hell, it compares to my N95 like a Mac compares to a PC. Am I too opportunistic?