Without pretending to rationalize my new phone purchase (I didn't bite on the 3GS, I'm old school with just a 3G), I blame it on my lovely spouse, Regina. She gave me the picture of the phone in my Father's Day card, said good luck.
I went through the pre-order process but never got the confirmation email from Apple Southpoint, so I was relegated to the "non-reserved" line. Head off to Southpoint at 6am to see what the situation is and decide if its worth the wait. The count at the end of the line (according to the guy in front of me) was 234. The "reserved" line looked smaller so I figured I'd be home by lunch, being they opened at 7am, they should be able to process ~500 people before lunch.
Then the nice morning manager (Justin) took good care of us lowly non-reserved scum of the earth, saying that it would be a 10-1 ratio being served. That is, 10 from the reserved line, 1 from the non-reserved line. This was after he gave everyone in the line a neat looking piece of paper that identified we'd get a phone since they had enough to cover everyone on the reserved list and those of us in the non-reserved line.
So, why the 10-1 ratio? Since they were reserved, they were a higher class of humans that the rest of us and their time was worth more money. Most of us lower class didn't understand why the reserved got priority, as long as there were enough phones for everyone, why not go with a 1:1 ratio. It became an issue when the Durham Fire Marshal came out to inform the management that he was going to have a serious situation with the expected heat, no shade and people being offered a carrot by the company to stay in line. These ratios varied throughout the day from 10:1, 5:1, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, yet, the reserved line would be nearly empty, a guy would walk up and in he would go ahead of those of us who've been waiting for hours.
At approximately 6:14p, I was escorted into the air conditioned Nirvana of the Apple store, spending 12 hours standing on the outside, nearly to the minute.
You can trust that during this time, I shared my feelings with all the attending "Managers". As is typical with the Apple Staff, they are very respectful, attentive and listen quite well then struggle with doing what they said was policy which came "from above", the evening Manager Tim took care of us during the home stretch.
The stunning reality of the situation became evident as we descended into Lord of the Flies mentality. As we finally rounded the corner to the door, where we could see the adversaries (those reserved line a-holes) eye to eye. As the door opened and the escort came to select which line to choose, a resounding BOOOOO would rise every time the reserved line was selected. Conversely, as the non-reserved losers were allowed to go into the fresh, clean and cool air of the Apple showroom, the crowd would erupt not unlike those watching Isner finally beat the Frenchy after 11 hours.
It was all in jest but you could see some of those in the reserved line had to be filled in as to how long we had been standing in line. To see people come to the manager from that line and let them know how stupid the policy was helped keep our faith, that some day, my grubby little fingers would be wrapped around the $300 piece of glass and some sort of special steel, that when grabbed just right, can attenuate the antenna enough to cause a drop of a bar on the AT&T coverages.
So be it, spent one of the hottest days of the summer to date, hanging out with some pretty good people, took care of a couple "older" women who were ill prepared for the extended stay. The staff did keep us hydrated, brought popsicles, snacks and offered themselves as sacrificial lambs every 15 minutes or so to see if we had any questions. Got to give them credit, I'd never go up to a crowd of a couple hundred, hot, sweaty, thirsty, hungry, and desperately nerdy to ask how we were and if we had any questions.
The phone, cool sh!t...
I went through the pre-order process but never got the confirmation email from Apple Southpoint, so I was relegated to the "non-reserved" line. Head off to Southpoint at 6am to see what the situation is and decide if its worth the wait. The count at the end of the line (according to the guy in front of me) was 234. The "reserved" line looked smaller so I figured I'd be home by lunch, being they opened at 7am, they should be able to process ~500 people before lunch.
Then the nice morning manager (Justin) took good care of us lowly non-reserved scum of the earth, saying that it would be a 10-1 ratio being served. That is, 10 from the reserved line, 1 from the non-reserved line. This was after he gave everyone in the line a neat looking piece of paper that identified we'd get a phone since they had enough to cover everyone on the reserved list and those of us in the non-reserved line.
So, why the 10-1 ratio? Since they were reserved, they were a higher class of humans that the rest of us and their time was worth more money. Most of us lower class didn't understand why the reserved got priority, as long as there were enough phones for everyone, why not go with a 1:1 ratio. It became an issue when the Durham Fire Marshal came out to inform the management that he was going to have a serious situation with the expected heat, no shade and people being offered a carrot by the company to stay in line. These ratios varied throughout the day from 10:1, 5:1, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, yet, the reserved line would be nearly empty, a guy would walk up and in he would go ahead of those of us who've been waiting for hours.
At approximately 6:14p, I was escorted into the air conditioned Nirvana of the Apple store, spending 12 hours standing on the outside, nearly to the minute.
You can trust that during this time, I shared my feelings with all the attending "Managers". As is typical with the Apple Staff, they are very respectful, attentive and listen quite well then struggle with doing what they said was policy which came "from above", the evening Manager Tim took care of us during the home stretch.
The stunning reality of the situation became evident as we descended into Lord of the Flies mentality. As we finally rounded the corner to the door, where we could see the adversaries (those reserved line a-holes) eye to eye. As the door opened and the escort came to select which line to choose, a resounding BOOOOO would rise every time the reserved line was selected. Conversely, as the non-reserved losers were allowed to go into the fresh, clean and cool air of the Apple showroom, the crowd would erupt not unlike those watching Isner finally beat the Frenchy after 11 hours.
It was all in jest but you could see some of those in the reserved line had to be filled in as to how long we had been standing in line. To see people come to the manager from that line and let them know how stupid the policy was helped keep our faith, that some day, my grubby little fingers would be wrapped around the $300 piece of glass and some sort of special steel, that when grabbed just right, can attenuate the antenna enough to cause a drop of a bar on the AT&T coverages.
So be it, spent one of the hottest days of the summer to date, hanging out with some pretty good people, took care of a couple "older" women who were ill prepared for the extended stay. The staff did keep us hydrated, brought popsicles, snacks and offered themselves as sacrificial lambs every 15 minutes or so to see if we had any questions. Got to give them credit, I'd never go up to a crowd of a couple hundred, hot, sweaty, thirsty, hungry, and desperately nerdy to ask how we were and if we had any questions.
The phone, cool sh!t...
Last edited:
R
...
Haha. Sounds like a fun time.
