Would you say that Apple's staff, especially those in retail stores, are much less "genius" than before? Like 5-10 years ago? That has been my experience. I have talked to some in store that sounded like they were hired off the street that same morning, with almost no training and familiarity with the products, services, settings and features. They knew even less than me and kept trying to sell me stuff while describing the products and services quite incompetently.
I would say that, yes. Today these Genii learn on PDFs on a web portal in the back of house or break rooms or GR. They don't get hands on with Apple devices until they're actually working on the customer's actual product. Not the ideal way to learn and make mistakes when you're on the hook to replace a production device.
"Back in my day", we spent 3 weeks in Cupertino learning the ins and outs of every product Apple sold at the time, with AppleCare trainers watching us closely in small classes of 6 or 8 technicians. It was very intimate and you hung out at the hotel or in San Jose/SF with the guys,
pretty much every waking hour you weren't asleep or in class. Kind of like a military experience, incredibly immersive stuff -- only nerdier. If you weren't an Apple fanboy, the exams at the end were not easy and people did fail them and come back without certification.
I have fond memories of Woz once coming by the retail training lab (it was on Bubb road) for lunch and taking us to get hamburgers in his Hummer (he bought extra hamburgers for his dogs), and also running into Steve Jobs taking a muffin at Caffe Macs (without paying of course) with Jony by his side. Those days are
long gone. Apple has grown too large to accommodate that style of training. I joined that Genius team in 2007 with 4 people on the staff plus an admin. By the time I left in 2014 there were 27 Geniuses and 3 admins. They still trained Geniuses in off-site facilities like Atlanta and Austin when I left Apple, but fast forward to now -- it's been in-store only since Angela Ahrendts. I think Cupertino training ended completely by 2009-2010.
www.washingtonpost.com
