In retrospective..Social Culture
Posted by Ramon Trujillo on Fri, Jun 25, 2010 @ 07:30 AM
This is a guest post written by Pedro Hermida, a Florida-based Technology strategist. He is also the owner of Innovate-it.us.
Those who know me, know that I do not do crowds, I do not do lines, I do not do shopping and I am not to be seen in any of the crazy “Mondays” dedicated to “sales” in the US. They also know that I do not jump on a new product ever, specially the launch day and also know that I am a PC, with the only exception of my phone.
Well, today I decided for the first time in my almost 52 years in the planet, to break those rules and did crowds and did lines, although I must confess that I kept my face down in case I came across someone I knew, or worst, some one that knows my wife from work.(*)
Today, I went to get my Iphone 4.
During the 7 hours and 20 minutes waiting in the garage, hallways and corridors of the selected mall, I had the opportunity to do a lot of “people watching” (and criticizing) and confirm that
(a) there is a ZOO out there,
(b) that I am correct when I blame the teenagers, punks and similar as to the cause of the (AT&T) network clog and the end of unlimited internet,
(c) that is never late to embrace technology: way too many 65+ including my “mate” who was side-by-side with me on his 65th birthday, as well as some grandmas and grandpas getting “cool”.
Tired, hungry, thirsty, I spent 7 hours and 5 minutes to get inside of the Apple Store … and let me tell you, the 15 minutes I spent inside almost made me forget the other 425 I waited. I was treated like gold, in a relaxed and extremely cordial and professional manner … They know how to do this!, I mean service customers (have a darn problem with queue theory and some operational principles, though).
At the end, I did it for the first time …. To behave like a typical, frenetic shopper .. got my Iphone 4 and I am now looking for “mates” to “facetime” !
(Will never do it again, though)
PS: Special note for BlackBerry Users ….. come on guys, drop the “ball” !!
(*) She works for another SOFTware company. ;)