Mac OS X and Hardware Upgraded for Machiavellian Me by the Apple Store – Free!
Snow Leopard Upgrade
I pre-ordered the Snow Leopard upgrade when it became available months ago. When it arrived I tried to install it, but it didn’t work. I remembered that the optical drive on my MacBook is hinkey (yes, that’s a technical term).
The DVD sat on my desk since then. Then I thought, “hey!” I made an appointment with a genius at the Apple Store to see if they had a working optical drive they would connect for me so Snow Leopard could be installed. I wasn’t sure if they would be willing to do that.
When I got there, they were more than happy to oblige. However, they didn’t have an optical drive they could connect – they only had AirBook compatible drives. But they worked around it by making a disk image on one of their external drives then installed Snow Leopard from there. This was going to take a while though, so I had to check it in.
As an aside, I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad experience in an Apple store.
Hardware Upgrade
While we were checking the computer in, the guy behind the counter, Joshua, noticed it had a small tear on the edge of the top casing. This a problem common to the early generation MacBooks.
He said, “This tear is a known issue, so while the computer is here we’ll replace the casing for you.”
This was great news, not only for the sake of the tear, but because my mouse button had a real chunky click on the left side that was making me nervous it would break soon.
Furthermore the top casing is about a $160 part if you buy it from Apple. You can get them for less money elsewhere, but it’s still pricey – around $130. It costs that much because includes the mouse and keyboard. Here Joshua was offering to replace it for free. Wow!
Machiavellian Me
But – and here’s the Machiavellian part – I happen to know that the tearing around the edges is a known issue because I’ve already replaced it.
Twice.
I was on my third top casing. I think Joshua assumed this was the original top casing – that is – he thought he was replacing a defective Apple factory part.
As soon as he offered to replace it, I briefly thought, “Will he withdraw the offer if I tell him it’s been replaced twice already?”
And then I remembered:
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
So instead, I said, “Great! Thanks!”
Yes, I’m a bad, bad man. In my defense, he didn’t ask. And on balance, they might still have replaced it had I said something. Like I said, I’ve never had a bad experience at the Apple store.
The ending to the story is: I’m typing this on my fresh keyboard. It has the texture on it still… Mmm. Feels nice.
