Downtown SF Apple Store Worst Service Ever!

With the announcement of the new "Santa Rosa" MacBooks this morning we went straight to the downtown San Francisco Apple store and stood in line with the rest of the buyers. 10:am came and we waited for the doors to open but they didn't. We figured they were prepping the new MacBooks but they weren't. The sales staff were standing around like a bunch of turtles.

When the doors did open several of us made a beeline to the front counter and still the sales people stood in a group behind the counter chatting, giggling, laughing with each other. "Can we get some service here?" several of us asked. Finally a young lady came over. We asked to purchase the new MacBook. "MacBook?" she questioned back as though she had never heard of the item. "Yes, the new MacBook. Annnounced this morning on the Apple web site which claims "now available". She stared with a glazed looked and walked back to the group. Several minutes later we asked for assistance again and a young bubba came forth. He was just as perplexed as the young lady was. "Let me get a manager..." and he walked off.

Finally a red-headed dude came forth, said he was a manager and that they did have the new MacBooks but they were still crated and downstairs. "They should be available tomorrow," was his answer. That was an insufficient answer for many of us who had driven a long way to pick up the new MacBook. Could he possibly go down and and get a couple of them and prep them for sale? "Maybe this afternoon..." was his reply. "What's the point of having an Apple store if you can't buy the latest Apple products?"

We left in disgust so we can't tell you if the new MacBooks are worth the time and effort to wade through the silliness and lackluster sales approach of the downtown San Francisco Apple store sales staff.

UPDATE (2:15pm) I went back alone, was standing in line when the same red-headed dude walked by. I looked familiar to him. He nodded, stopped, pointed a finger at me and said, "OS/2 Guy, right?" and I said yes. "We have your MacBook ready for you, won't you follow me?" Within a few minutes I walked out with the new black MacBook with the 160Gig hard drive and the "Santa Rosa" chip. Oh happy day!