Tag Archives: service

Work Experience, Part II

At its peak, the Australian Apple Premium Reseller called Next Byte had more than 20 stores nationally, and I spent the tail end of my high school and all of my uni-going years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

Today, the Apple landscape in Australia is a lot different to what it was over a decade ago. Thanks mostly to the iPhone, Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world. Apple owned-and-operated retail locations compete with general electronics retailers, who now sell Apple products more out of obligation rather than any real profit-chasing exercise. But as any reseller will tell you, slim profits on Apple products means it’s extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to match Apple when it comes to the unparalleled customer experience that Apple Retail locations are able to offer. Any third-party Apple presence is either small enough to fly under the radar, or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city CBD besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means out in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps covered by Apple’s online store and mail-in repair programs.

I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. In the interests of becoming a better storyteller, the one I’m going to tell you today is about the time I did work experience at my place of employment.

All up, I spent about seven years at Next Byte. Mostly on a casual basis, working on weekends and school/Uni holidays where I could. By the end of that seven years I had proven myself in basically every aspect of the business; sales consultant, service technician, stock administrator, executive assistant, and Apple educator.

I was a stand-in in the truest sense of the word, capable of performing basically every role besides, perhaps, running the joint. And not that I didn’t want to, but somehow, there was always someone more senior than me who managed to hang onto that responsibility. Which, being as young as I was, was totally fine by me.

It’s sometime in June, 2007.

I’ve been working at Next Byte on a weekends/school holidays basis for about six months now, and everything is great.

The end of the school year is coming up fast. I need to find somewhere to complete a week’s worth of work experience for the Vocational Educational and Training subject I’m taking, and what better place than my current place of employment? Maybe not in retail though, I’ve already done plenty of that. What about service?

One phone call later and it’s all sorted out, and the service team lead (and business manager) couldn’t be happier — he gets a free week of labour from someone who already knows a few things about the business, a few more things about Macs, and I get to tick a box for one of my subjects. It’s win-win.

Technically, it’s the second time I’ve performed work experience at Next Byte. But while that first time was mostly spent out helping out doing whatever boring mundane completely necessary chores mixed with a little customer service, I didn’t get any hands-on time with some of the tools poking around the insides of Macs.

That changed the second time around, with my second go at work experience involving performing light administrative duties, observing repairs, and even a few very basic repairs of my own — all under the careful observation of an actually certified technician, of course. Still, I had a hard time shaking a certain sense of déjà vu as I’m shown the ropes on a different aspect of the business.

The week passes by uneventfully, and at the end, I get a glowing recommendation from the service manager, extolling my incredible work ethic, ability to quickly learn new things, and willingness to give anything a go with a smile.

I like to think I still have some of those skills.

Outside of the US and want to access US-restricted content? No problem!

Vevo was recently released on the App Store, and it’s one of those apps that contain US-restricted content (namely, music videos from popular artists).

Pandora Radio is also another app that’s limited to the US – if you’re outside of the US, then you can kiss any radio-listening dreams you had goodbye.

Then there’s Steam. There’s a whole bundle of games that are just plain unavailable outside of the US (namely, the Rockstar collection), not to mention all the price-gouging that goes on if you’re outside of the US.

Frankly, I was getting sick of all this. This is the 21st century – if you put it on the internet, expect it to be accessed by the whole internet.

With Super VPN Service, you can now access all of your favourite US-restricted content – even if you’re not from the US!

It’s pretty cool, you should totally check out their services.

Disclaimer: yes, I used this post to get a free lifetime (3 year) account. Don’t hate me – instead, do the same thing – full instructions here.

What is Aardvark? [NOW WITH INVITES]

Aardvark is a social search service that connects users live with friends or friends-of-friends who are able to answer their questions. Users submit questions via email or instant messenger and Aardvark identifies and facilitates a live chat or email conversation with one or more topic experts in the asker’s extended social network. Users can also review question and answer history and other settings on the Aardvark website.

via Aardvark (search engine) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Furthermore,

When a user joins Aardvark, Aardvark is added to the user’s IM buddylist. Users submit questions by email or IM. Aardvark guides the user through the question process by providing messages that confirm receipt of the question and explain any actions required by the user. IM users are also able to use a variety of “IM commands”–one word messages that can be used to fine-tune the question parameters, invite new users, or get help.

Aardvark currently supports Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, and AOL Instant Messenger.

If you need an invite link, feel free to use mine, available here.

Some people have responded to Aardvark by saying that it’s example questions can be answered using Google – and for the most part, I agree – increasingly, I find that people who use Aardvark are just damned lazy.

For example, I got this from some guy in Sweden:

How do I printscreen when using Parallels Desktop on a Mac?

Not having used Parallels before, I decided to Google it – I eventually stumbled across a couple of forum threads that suggested using XP’s built-in on-screen-keyboard with it’s printscn key worked a treat. It took me what, 30 seconds to look on Google? For crying out loud.

Another one I got was:

Anyone know any good Linux data recover software?

At the time Lifehacker hadn’t released their article detailing free data recovery tools, so Google proved fruitless. Of course, I wasn’t searching for “linux data recovery”, so I have to brush up on my Google-fu.

Last one I thought was pretty stupid:

How can i nstall the newest version of ICQ on my Windows 2000?

I mean, COME. ON. HAVE YOU HEARD OF GOOGLE?!

No, Aardvark is best used for those personal questions. “What’s the best way to ask out a girl?”, “Where’s the best place for a good meal on a saturday night in Hobart?”, “How do I tell my girlfriend of 15 years that I’m gay?” Okay, I’m kidding on the last one. But really – those personal recommendations that you can’t get though Google work a treat on these so-called “social networks”.

To each his own, I guess.

Anyways, if you need an invite link, hit up mine: available here.

There are two sides to every story…

…and as such, two sides of every coin.

If you missed my post about why professional IT is going down the drain, hit it up here. It’s highly recommended for what I’m about to say, because then you’ll know what I’m actually talking about.

However, it is the length of a small essay, so I’ll provide the executive summary here:
Professional IT is going down the toilet because the “professionals” aren’t – they’re mindless, spineless robots who don’t diversify themselves into many different IT fields, choosing to instead specialise (and then even barely) in one particular field, one vendor, one solution. When faced with a challenge, they recommend their one and only solution, backing away from everything they’re unfamiliar with – even if the unknown could be a far better solution than their “tried and true” solution.

BUT! There is one problem – we’re only looking at one side of the equation, coin, story. We know that the IT professionals are becoming less and less professional – but why?

Well, I have the answer.

It’s you.

It’s probably not me, but it is the people that put huge demands on their respective IT professional.

I know a person that is an awesome guy – nice to hang with, has good morals, etc – but he does work in IT. He is also damn good at his job. Over the last couple of months though, I’ve seen that even though the quality of his work hasn’t deteriorated, his attitude towards it has.

You might be asking yourself how you’re the problem. Well, end-users are now expecting so much of people in the IT industry – to me, we’re becoming an increasingly selfish culture who only see ourselves as the centre of the universe.

Everything, all the time, is about “Me, Me Me!”, and it doesn’t matter that there is a queue for services, or that there are other matters to be attended to before people can deal with your problem. People aren’t seeing the big picture – in the grand scheme of things, you don’t matter.

Maybe this is turning into a rant, but even worse is when end-users like you complain bitterly about the service you’ve received. I mean, what the hell, man! We’re trying to help you, and the thanks we get is “I iz gonna call the [insert security organisation/complaints department of choice here] on your ass!“? Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather not serve you next time – and I’m sure my colleagues feel the same way.

Judging by the reactions of some people who have lost years of data because they [stupidly] never backed up and were “surprised” by a massive hard drive failure (it happens, trust me, it happens), then it’s no wonder professional IT is going down the drain! Seriously, calm down and while you’re thinking about your precious data that we’ve inadvertently lost, think about how it’s all your fault. These kinds of failures, while rare, can happen and are totally preventable. To this end, I’m issuing a community service announcement: back the hell up. If it’s important to you, back it up. At a bare minimum, back up anything you’ve created yourself, eg all your school documents, essays, presentations, spreadsheets. If in doubt, back it up.

I apologise. Once again, I digress. Getting back on topic, my awesome friend now has a horrible attitude towards work, and it’s all the end-users fault. I once had some other people I know consider suing some computer shop just because they lost their data – this was after they had signed a contract saying that that computer store wasn’t responsible for their data, as they shouldn’t have been. If you’re thinking of trusting your data to anyone else, even those “automated backup” software, don’t. It’s not a good idea to leave your data in someone else’ hands, much less a money grabbing company!

AH! What is with me and backups! Right, getting back on topic, again: My anonymous friend now doesn’t care. He’s completely indifferent to your continual issues with your printer, scanner, and Windows. He just doesn’t care – he’s being paid to fix your problems, but that doesn’t mean he cares.

Personally, I think that’s a rubbish attitude to have, especially in IT. Apple Genii don’t get their jobs by not wanting to help people! Sure, there is a fine difference between not caring and wanting to help. In IT, you could do your job even if you didn’t care. You could still be awesome at your job and not care. However, you wouldn’t excel at your job.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you whether you care or not.

Comments below.