Fool me, lose the sale

So against my better judgment I spent two hours in the cold and rain on Friday evening, waiting in the longest queue of my life for the privilege to hand a hard-earned, crisp one-thousand dollars to some dipwad in a blue tee shirt with a small, white, half-eaten apple upon it.

During the wait, I asked the same Apple employee four times, to please just be honest and save me the trouble of standing here, with my whole family if I’m not going to be able to purchase an iPad. All four times he said there was “plenty to go around”, to be fair the third and fourth time he added, “so long as you don’t want a white 3g at&t model” and “if you don’t mind a black Verizon model” respectively.

In line, I stayed. I was twenty people from the entrance, when the same dude came out and said, “Really sorry, but we only have 10 left, and it is 2 per person, so…” At this point I was pretty pissed. This guy had wasted my family and I’s time. The realization that they knew exactly how many there were the whole time, and that more than half the line was going home empty handed, and in fact they had lied to everyone, keeping the line as long and crazy as they could, made my anger even worse.

It’s not about getting an iPad or not. It’s about a company knowingly wasting my time and even when pressed and taken aside and asked for a legit answer telling me, “it’s NO problem”.

So I left the line after thanking the kid for wasting my time. He was of course, mock offended.

I also let the rest of the line behind me know that the iPads were all gone. Because there was NO way that the last 10 wouldn’t be purchased by the next 20 people, let alone and more likely the next five people. It was very funny, watching the guy and his coconspirators try to run damage control after my announcement.

I went home, looked on craigslist and realized why that group of kids I saw leaving the Apple store 2 hours earlier each had four iPads with them. Aftermarket sales for the $499 model for $1000!

I called another Apple store, spoke to a manager and he said, we are getting more tomorrow (Saturday) at 11am, if you call I’d be happy to hold one while you drive down, to make up for the debacle at the launch line.

I called at 11am, asked for the manager and got a different manager who told me, no iPads today, sorry, but we are getting a secret shipment tomorrow at, yes you guessed it, 11am. Call back then and I’ll be happy to hold one while you drive down, no problem. She too felt sorry for me after I told her my story.

So this morning I call at 11am. Guess what, yeah no iPads, but yet another manager. This one says no way we get any shipments on a Sunday, how silly of me for believing someone who works somewhere I don’t. He goes on to say we will be getting more tomorrow (Monday) at 11am, and that they had gotten some on Saturday at 11am. Wait, that’s strange I was told they didn’t get any Saturday by Saturday’s manager.

At this point, I realize what a fool I’d been over a hunk of metal and glass. I simply said. “You lost a sale, thank you for wasting my time.” I heard, “But, wait…” before I ironically pressed end on my iPhone 3GS.