A conversation with the Apple Genius Bar guy: With an S printed on our blue T-shirt, we are Superman

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25-year-old Wen Ai introduced his job like this: saving the world, saving humanity.

He is a technical service staff at the Genius Bar in an Apple store in Beijing. He feels that he is playing a role like Superman standing behind the light wooden bar. "The only thing missing from this room of blue clothes is an S on the chest."

Genius technical support at Apple stores is Wen Ai's first job, which he has held since 2011. He has now advanced to a senior technical specialist who can provide technical services for all Apple products - usually, Genius Bar workers are only responsible for the reception of one product line, either iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Wen Ai has to cross half of Beijing every day to and from get off work. He works eight hours a day and takes one hour for lunch. He receives an average of 30 customers who come for technical consultation every day. Each customer takes an average of 15 minutes, and the longest time took two hours. "If my boss knew that it took so long, I would be doomed." He said that the person was a foreign aunt and he couldn't speak the language.

In the past four years, he claimed that he had never thought about changing jobs, and would not even compare salaries between people in the same industry, because he was a "super Apple fan" and this job "punished evil and promoted good."

The "punishment of evil" by the blue-clad Superman refers to the brave fight against scalpers. Wen Ai said that a common type of scalper nowadays is to bring a water-damaged iPhone that cannot be turned on or a partially damaged device that they found from everywhere to the Genius Bar to cheat and exchange it for a new one, and then resell it. "They will replace it with a fake screen, or report a separate repair for parts such as the microphone that cannot be replaced independently, and some people have succeeded."

One day when Wen Ai was on duty, a group of three people came to the store to report an iPhone and asked for a replacement. Wen Ai said he saw the trick and refused the repair or replacement. So the three men made it clear: If you don't replace it for me, I won't leave. I will leave when you leave. They kept their word. From morning to night that day, the three scalpers followed Wen Ai closely in the Apple store until the end of the day. Wen Ai was escorted by the store security guards to the subway.

"This is what I call a superman feeling - I successfully defeated and destroyed an evil organization, and then I was retaliated by them." Wen Ai said that he did not feel weak in the knees or sweat at the time, but just felt it was exciting and interesting. "One of my colleagues saw through the scalper's tricks and was attacked in the store."

Wen Ai said the trouble is that scalpers are now hiring people to come to the store. He once saw a whole village of men, women, and children, all with their ID cards, rushing into the store, hired by scalpers to buy new products; if they came to cheat for replacement or repair, they would hire mothers holding babies, old men, or people dressed as students.

Another part of "promoting good deeds" is how to outsmart customers. It is not uncommon to see aunties and grandmas sitting on the ground, crying and saying "I won't leave until the problem is solved"; when the machine is taken back to the workshop for repair and turned on for inspection, the customer comes out and questions: "How can you prove that the phone was not in your house and you got it wet?"

When the iPhone 6 was first released, a man came to Wen Ai with a bent phone. He said, "I just activated it, watched a video, charged it, and left it on the table. It bent on its own when I woke up in the morning." He asked for a replacement and compensation for time and traffic losses. "I'm a member of the media. I can expose you in a minute."

Wen Ai started arguing with him until his face turned red, and his brother's loud voice drowned out the noise of all the people and machines in the store. At the climax, Wen Ai took out his newly bought iPhone 6 from his trouser pocket and threw it in a parabola: "If it is deformed without any external force as you said, then mine must be broken after a fall."

Fortunately, Wen Ai’s phone was not broken, but unfortunately the brother became even more furious: “You are provoking me and insulting me!” The whole thing ended like this: Wen Ai was complained for insulting a customer, the customer was insulted and felt that “it was time to expose them” and left empty-handed.

Four years of experience as a Genius has enabled Wen Ai to confidently predict what the first customers who walk into the store on the morning of September 10 will ask:

“Are there any new products?”

"Do you have a sample machine to show me?"

"Have you seen it? When can you come and buy it?"

At the same time, it is also predictable that after Wen Ai answered them, their reaction would be: "Tsk... stingy..."

Life is between scalpers and customers, but this still makes Wen Ai feel extremely satisfied. "If you want me to work for Samsung, Xiaomi, or Hammer now, you might as well make me completely unemployed." The moment Wen Ai became an Apple fan was when he queued up overnight at a newly opened store to buy an iPhone 4. When he saw the black curtain with a white apple pattern on the store sign being unveiled, the employees in blue T-shirts in the store were all greeting him frantically: "At that moment, it was like taking drugs, ah, it was so cool!"