8 ms·

What I Learned Building the Apple Store

106 points by tilt 15y ago

ctdonath 15y ago
Just me, or do store personnel seem ... extremely formal and polite to an unusual degree of training? Don't mean it bad, they just seem a bit, um, odd. They're so efficient I can't quite put my finger on it.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  It's not just you. Ron Johnson, from the article: No one came to the Genius Bar during the first years. I have a hypothesis about this: People didn't instinctively walk up to the Genius Bar because they had to be trained to accept the existence of a computer store employee who wasn't going to waste their time. Of the retail-chain employees that you're likely to encounter in a store, there are two broad stereotypes: The ones who don't really understand the products, and the ones who are trying to close new sales as efficiently as possible. The Apple Geniuses fit neither category, and that does indeed feel odd.
  - yuhong 15y ago
    Yep, it takes a while to build a reputation.
bradleyland 15y ago
"...how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways, and Amazon carries them all — and doesn't charge sales tax!" I don't mean to take anything away from Ron Johnson (how could I, who am I?), but I'd like to take a crack at answering this rhetorical question. Apple's retail presence is unique for many reasons, but a big part of its uniqueness stems from the fact that they are the only computer retailer that has their own stores. The key point there is that you're going to buy a computer at a store owned and operated by the company that made the computer. That is entirely unique in the world of computing, and I'd speculate that there is a significant incentive present here. When you buy something from Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, etc, you're dealing with a retailer whose primary interest is in keeping he customer just happy enough to come back and shop with them again. If they can find a way to pawn the customer off on the vendor, they will. It's in their interest to do so. Every customer knows this game: You bring a product back to a retailer. The retailer tells you that you must talk to the manufacturer. You call the manufacturer, and they explain that the retailer should just accept the item as a return and give you another one... or some similar explanation. The point is that the customer ends up bearing the burden of managing this process. What a pain in the ass! I bought this thing and I just want it to work. I want to talk to someone familiar with the product. I want to talk to someone who actually cares about my feelings about the product. The astute reader will note that each of the typical gripes above are solved by the Apple store formula because the employees are beholden to Apple, who is also the product manufacturer. They are the final stop on the responsibility train. No one else to talk to. Retail panacea! Consumers know this. I know more than one person who are long time Apple fans, and they'll all tell you the same thing: buy from the Apple store directly instead of a reseller because they'll take better care of you.
- seanalltogether 15y ago
  Gateway used to have their own stores, Sony has their own stores, I don't think the uniqueness of Apple comes from simply cutting out the middleman.
  - nirvana 15y ago
    I went to a gateway store. It was a pretty bad experience. The machines were locked down and you couldn't use them. The sales people were the same kind you'd find at CompUSA (unknowledgable and myth spreading). Sony is a little better, as they at least try to put some interesting design into their stores.
    - thematt 15y ago
      I'm curious, what do you mean by "myth spreading"?
      - mitjak 15y ago
        * "Without this third party package there is a high chance of getting a virus or getting hacked" * "More expensive HDMI cables produce a better quality image" * "Higher megapixel cameras produce higher quality pictures" Etc. Those are the ones I came up with off the top of my head that I was personally enlightened with at one point or another.
        ericd 15y ago
        Yeah, I almost feel compelled to follow any salesperson I see at one of those stores who's helping an affable but uninformed person just so that I can correct all the false statements they're told after the salesperson goes away. It's amazing to me that people hire most of those people to represent their stores and companies. Most big box retail electronics stores are really shoddy shopping experiences.
  - gbog 15y ago
    And Bang & Olufsen
jfruh 15y ago
One aspect of the experience in the Apple Store that Johnson doesn't mention is that all the gadgets there are powered up and you can play with them. I've never understood how cell phone stores and electronics retailers who almost invariably have dummy units out on display expect to sell anything to a casual buyer. This especially goes for Windows Phone 7; people who use it seem to love it, but it doesn't have much iPhone style mindshare so it seems like it NEEDS to be out there to fiddle with. But I've only seen dummy units in stores.
- Timothee 15y ago
  And an important part of this is that they pay extra care to the anti-theft systems so that they don't get in the way and stop you from using the products normally. Many times I've seen cell phones where the anti-theft system was so bulky that you couldn't open it or close it completely, or access the keypad easily.
- sjs 15y ago
  The good shops still have at least a few demo units, and if not you can ask someone who works there to bring out a real device to try out. I'm not saying that's a good way to do it but it is at least possible to try them out, if you're determined. For the casual buyer having to ask to try it out is a barrier, and for those just looking it's probably a deterrent.
- mikeryan 15y ago
  Which may be why Microsoft is getting into the retail biz.
- there 15y ago
  i went to best buy the other day and strangely, the two iphones (at their own booth in the cellphone department) were tethered but completely functional. just about every other android phone was tethered the same way but had a dummy screen. i can't imagine that the vendors requested that the units be fake (why would you not want a working demo?) so it must be best buy that did this. yet the iphones were more expensive and possibly fragile than any of the other android phones there and they were real.
baby 15y ago
I personnaly think the Appstore was awful on the iPhone 1G. You would connect, try to find an app. Some app you couldn't download because it was not available in the app store of your country. Then when you download an app it goes back to the home screen and prompt you with a new thing to accept before downloading it. Then you have to enter your password again (I hope for you its a short one). Then finally it's downloading. Of course you were looking at several apps so if you want to install 2 or 3 in the same time or make a queue you can't, you have to go back in the app store et re-find that other app you saw and install it. I thought it was a mess and that nobody would really get into it. Then people started making crappy/fun apps to play with their iPhone/iTouch. And this is were it all started. Imo it's because of the huge number of people who got an iPhone/iTouch that it works. Eventhough we were struggling with the appstore, the possibility of getting new apps like our phone was a computer was something appealing. The appstore didn't make the iPhone, the iPhone made the appstore.
- teej 15y ago
  Please read the article before you comment.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  This article isn't about the App Store.
thematt 15y ago
One of the biggest reinventions I've noticed is the elimination of cash registers in the Apple Stores. Walk up to almost any employee and they can check you out with their handheld computer. That is a huge plus from a customer experience point of view.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  The Apple Store down the street from me has cash registers. I think they only do the iPhone checkout thing when you do a large purchase. My experience standing in line at an Apple Store has been very bad. Perhaps worse than any retail store I can recall. By not having a clear line the customer is left confused. What am I supposed to do if I want to buy a mouse? If the store's not busy you're set. If it is busy you have to try and grab an employee, who's undoubtedly busy helping another customer already. Then they tell you to stand in the line. Except that the front cash register area is both a cash register and a work station. So you might be standing in line and the two people in front of you are getting repairs. So you wait 15 minutes to buy a mouse. A busy Apple Store feels like a DMV to me. There are numerous customers standing around waiting to be helped, but there is no clear way to get a ticket, as there at least is at a DMV.
- mikeryan 15y ago
  I'm not sure how it works yet but the newest version of the App Store app on your phone allows you to actually check youself out - no blue shirt needed. Not sure how they prevent theft yet though, I haven't yet used it.
  - timjahn 15y ago
    I used that feature last week and it's quite amazing. Like you, I'd be worried about theft though. I literally walked into the Apple Store, to the back, grabbed a Bumper off the wall, opened the Apple Store app on my phone, scanned the Bumper UPC, paid with my Apple ID, and walked out of the store. Took about 4 minutes total. And I definitely felt like I was stealing something.
- ugh 15y ago
  That’s nice but also the one negative point about Apple Stores. They are usually packed and many people want to buy something, too many to really handle without a line – yet there isn’t one place where a line could form, which tends to lead to confusion. People who are completely new to Apple Stores might moreover not immediately know where to pay what they want to buy. When I visited the Apple Store in Munich for the first time I wanted to buy a €15 gift card but every Apple employee was busy and I couldn’t really find a place where I thought I would be able to pay. It seemed like too much of a hassle and that gift card wasn’t important enough for me. I wasn’t really trying very hard to buy something but I think this shows that packed Apple Stores aren’t a very friendly place for small impulse purchases. By the way, in the Munich Apple Store they sort of do have a semi-permanent setup on the right at the back of the store. I think a lot more people in Germany still pay cash (I payed my iPad cash – don’t ask.) so their nifty cash registers (which are hidden under the tables) are needed more often (they are also not mobile) and there are more or less permanently Apple employees there. If a line forms they will tell you that you can pay everywhere but that doesn’t really help a whole lot when every single employee is busy. I think what Apple is doing works extremely well for Stores that aren’t packed – but if they are it seems to break down a bit. And Apple Stores are usually packed.
richcollins 15y ago
One of the most common comments I heard was that the Apple Store succeeded because it carried Apple products and catered to the brand's famously passionate customers. Well, yes, Apple products do pull people into stores. But you don't need to stock iPads to create an irresistible retail environment. You have to create a store that's more than a store to people. People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they're willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn't focused on selling stuff, it's focused on building relationships and trying to make people's lives better. Best of luck creating a great experience that makes people's lives better with shit products.
Yhippa 15y ago
Ron will have an interesting challenge at his new employer. I feel for traditional retail that the customer experience hasn't changed that much. Maybe it's because I'm a guy but when I step into a big store like that I want to know exactly where what I'm looking for is. I haven't seen a good solution to that yet for bigger stores.
dean 15y ago
"how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways" A little off topic, but I have to say that I have never seen a new, latest release model of any Apple product on sale at any of these stores. Not Wal-Mart, not Target, not even Costco and certainly not Best Buy. Apple products just don't go on sale, so the Apple store is not competing against discounts at other stores.
- danssig 15y ago
  Walmart doesn't typically do sales. What they do do is force vendors to drop prices every year. Can anyone on the inside confirm if they inflict this on Apple (who probably get around it with yearly refreshes) or if Apple is strong enough to tell them to FO with that.
jbrowning 15y ago
In many ways, I think the Apple Store has now become a victim of its own success. Recent discussions on HN and elsewhere mention confusion with the how to actually buy something at the store when all the blue shirts are busy. Most of the stores that I have visited recently are packed with people making it hard for those new to the store to browse and explore. It will be interesting to see what Apple does to address these problems as its stores get even more popular and congested.
- jamesbkel 15y ago
  In case you missed this: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/in-store-pickup-self-checkout-likely-coming-to-apple-store-near-you.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/in-store-pickup-se... (there was actually a well-commented post about this on HN not too long ago, but after a few min I gave up trying to find it)
BryanB55 15y ago
The most interesting part of this article: How someone could leave Apple to work at JC Penny! Really? For some reason I have a feeling he's doing it mainly for the money, but that's just me speculating...I surely hope not.
- philwelch 15y ago
  He's CEO of JCPenney. I don't think he would have gotten to that level at Apple. And if your passion is retail, CEO of it's a dream job.
- Androsynth 15y ago
  If you go to his wiki page, you can see his employment history and get an idea for how much he has been compensated at his various companies. If anything, he was at Apple mainly for the money.
- sjwright 15y ago
  Or maybe he's keen for a challenge. Sometimes it's better to work for a company that sucks at what you're good at, because there can be greater opportunity to improve things and be rewarded for it.
daimyoyo 15y ago
Something he didn't mention is how Apple is pretty much the only retail store in existence that has items people want to use, and has a policy of letting them use the products as much as they want. I think that's the single biggest difference(well, that and the fact that Apple employees aren't on commision) between Apple and every other electronics retailer. While everyone else is full of people looking to sell you, Apple stands back and let's the products sell themselves. It worked on me.
Angostura 15y ago
Context: I am an Apple fan, I have been using its products for a little over 20 years But am I really the only person who finds the Apple Store a wretched experience? The first time I went into one I was horribly confused - where to I actually pay for stuff? I want some help with a product that I've bought.Can I ask you? I can't. You? No. Oh, I have to visit the Genius bar. Where's the queue for that? Over there? Oh, there is no queue, I have to book online. Or don't I? Who do I ask to find out? Even when I book a Genius Bar appointment, I'm left dangling. Hello, I'm here for my apointment - do I tell anyone? Do I kinda hang about until the time slot is here? Will I be called forward? I hate the places.

106 points by tilt 15y ago

Just me, or do store personnel seem ... extremely formal and polite to an unusual degree of training? Don't mean it bad, they just seem a bit, um, odd. They're so efficient I can't quite put my finger on it.

mechanical_fish 15y ago
It's not just you. Ron Johnson, from the article: No one came to the Genius Bar during the first years. I have a hypothesis about this: People didn't instinctively walk up to the Genius Bar because they had to be trained to accept the existence of a computer store employee who wasn't going to waste their time. Of the retail-chain employees that you're likely to encounter in a store, there are two broad stereotypes: The ones who don't really understand the products, and the ones who are trying to close new sales as efficiently as possible. The Apple Geniuses fit neither category, and that does indeed feel odd.
- yuhong 15y ago
  Yep, it takes a while to build a reputation.

bradleyland 15y ago

"...how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways, and Amazon carries them all — and doesn't charge sales tax!" I don't mean to take anything away from Ron Johnson (how could I, who am I?), but I'd like to take a crack at answering this rhetorical question. Apple's retail presence is unique for many reasons, but a big part of its uniqueness stems from the fact that they are the only computer retailer that has their own stores. The key point there is that you're going to buy a computer at a store owned and operated by the company that made the computer. That is entirely unique in the world of computing, and I'd speculate that there is a significant incentive present here. When you buy something from Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, etc, you're dealing with a retailer whose primary interest is in keeping he customer just happy enough to come back and shop with them again. If they can find a way to pawn the customer off on the vendor, they will. It's in their interest to do so. Every customer knows this game: You bring a product back to a retailer. The retailer tells you that you must talk to the manufacturer. You call the manufacturer, and they explain that the retailer should just accept the item as a return and give you another one... or some similar explanation. The point is that the customer ends up bearing the burden of managing this process. What a pain in the ass! I bought this thing and I just want it to work. I want to talk to someone familiar with the product. I want to talk to someone who actually cares about my feelings about the product. The astute reader will note that each of the typical gripes above are solved by the Apple store formula because the employees are beholden to Apple, who is also the product manufacturer. They are the final stop on the responsibility train. No one else to talk to. Retail panacea! Consumers know this. I know more than one person who are long time Apple fans, and they'll all tell you the same thing: buy from the Apple store directly instead of a reseller because they'll take better care of you.

seanalltogether 15y ago
Gateway used to have their own stores, Sony has their own stores, I don't think the uniqueness of Apple comes from simply cutting out the middleman.
- nirvana 15y ago
  I went to a gateway store. It was a pretty bad experience. The machines were locked down and you couldn't use them. The sales people were the same kind you'd find at CompUSA (unknowledgable and myth spreading). Sony is a little better, as they at least try to put some interesting design into their stores.
  - thematt 15y ago
    I'm curious, what do you mean by "myth spreading"?
    - mitjak 15y ago
      * "Without this third party package there is a high chance of getting a virus or getting hacked" * "More expensive HDMI cables produce a better quality image" * "Higher megapixel cameras produce higher quality pictures" Etc. Those are the ones I came up with off the top of my head that I was personally enlightened with at one point or another.
      - ericd 15y ago
        Yeah, I almost feel compelled to follow any salesperson I see at one of those stores who's helping an affable but uninformed person just so that I can correct all the false statements they're told after the salesperson goes away. It's amazing to me that people hire most of those people to represent their stores and companies. Most big box retail electronics stores are really shoddy shopping experiences.
- gbog 15y ago
  And Bang & Olufsen

jfruh 15y ago

One aspect of the experience in the Apple Store that Johnson doesn't mention is that all the gadgets there are powered up and you can play with them. I've never understood how cell phone stores and electronics retailers who almost invariably have dummy units out on display expect to sell anything to a casual buyer. This especially goes for Windows Phone 7; people who use it seem to love it, but it doesn't have much iPhone style mindshare so it seems like it NEEDS to be out there to fiddle with. But I've only seen dummy units in stores.

Timothee 15y ago
And an important part of this is that they pay extra care to the anti-theft systems so that they don't get in the way and stop you from using the products normally. Many times I've seen cell phones where the anti-theft system was so bulky that you couldn't open it or close it completely, or access the keypad easily.
sjs 15y ago
The good shops still have at least a few demo units, and if not you can ask someone who works there to bring out a real device to try out. I'm not saying that's a good way to do it but it is at least possible to try them out, if you're determined. For the casual buyer having to ask to try it out is a barrier, and for those just looking it's probably a deterrent.
mikeryan 15y ago
Which may be why Microsoft is getting into the retail biz.
there 15y ago
i went to best buy the other day and strangely, the two iphones (at their own booth in the cellphone department) were tethered but completely functional. just about every other android phone was tethered the same way but had a dummy screen. i can't imagine that the vendors requested that the units be fake (why would you not want a working demo?) so it must be best buy that did this. yet the iphones were more expensive and possibly fragile than any of the other android phones there and they were real.

baby 15y ago

I personnaly think the Appstore was awful on the iPhone 1G. You would connect, try to find an app. Some app you couldn't download because it was not available in the app store of your country. Then when you download an app it goes back to the home screen and prompt you with a new thing to accept before downloading it. Then you have to enter your password again (I hope for you its a short one). Then finally it's downloading. Of course you were looking at several apps so if you want to install 2 or 3 in the same time or make a queue you can't, you have to go back in the app store et re-find that other app you saw and install it. I thought it was a mess and that nobody would really get into it. Then people started making crappy/fun apps to play with their iPhone/iTouch. And this is were it all started. Imo it's because of the huge number of people who got an iPhone/iTouch that it works. Eventhough we were struggling with the appstore, the possibility of getting new apps like our phone was a computer was something appealing. The appstore didn't make the iPhone, the iPhone made the appstore.

teej 15y ago
Please read the article before you comment.
ceejayoz 15y ago
This article isn't about the App Store.

thematt 15y ago

One of the biggest reinventions I've noticed is the elimination of cash registers in the Apple Stores. Walk up to almost any employee and they can check you out with their handheld computer. That is a huge plus from a customer experience point of view.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
The Apple Store down the street from me has cash registers. I think they only do the iPhone checkout thing when you do a large purchase. My experience standing in line at an Apple Store has been very bad. Perhaps worse than any retail store I can recall. By not having a clear line the customer is left confused. What am I supposed to do if I want to buy a mouse? If the store's not busy you're set. If it is busy you have to try and grab an employee, who's undoubtedly busy helping another customer already. Then they tell you to stand in the line. Except that the front cash register area is both a cash register and a work station. So you might be standing in line and the two people in front of you are getting repairs. So you wait 15 minutes to buy a mouse. A busy Apple Store feels like a DMV to me. There are numerous customers standing around waiting to be helped, but there is no clear way to get a ticket, as there at least is at a DMV.
mikeryan 15y ago
I'm not sure how it works yet but the newest version of the App Store app on your phone allows you to actually check youself out - no blue shirt needed. Not sure how they prevent theft yet though, I haven't yet used it.
- timjahn 15y ago
  I used that feature last week and it's quite amazing. Like you, I'd be worried about theft though. I literally walked into the Apple Store, to the back, grabbed a Bumper off the wall, opened the Apple Store app on my phone, scanned the Bumper UPC, paid with my Apple ID, and walked out of the store. Took about 4 minutes total. And I definitely felt like I was stealing something.
ugh 15y ago
That’s nice but also the one negative point about Apple Stores. They are usually packed and many people want to buy something, too many to really handle without a line – yet there isn’t one place where a line could form, which tends to lead to confusion. People who are completely new to Apple Stores might moreover not immediately know where to pay what they want to buy. When I visited the Apple Store in Munich for the first time I wanted to buy a €15 gift card but every Apple employee was busy and I couldn’t really find a place where I thought I would be able to pay. It seemed like too much of a hassle and that gift card wasn’t important enough for me. I wasn’t really trying very hard to buy something but I think this shows that packed Apple Stores aren’t a very friendly place for small impulse purchases. By the way, in the Munich Apple Store they sort of do have a semi-permanent setup on the right at the back of the store. I think a lot more people in Germany still pay cash (I payed my iPad cash – don’t ask.) so their nifty cash registers (which are hidden under the tables) are needed more often (they are also not mobile) and there are more or less permanently Apple employees there. If a line forms they will tell you that you can pay everywhere but that doesn’t really help a whole lot when every single employee is busy. I think what Apple is doing works extremely well for Stores that aren’t packed – but if they are it seems to break down a bit. And Apple Stores are usually packed.

richcollins 15y ago

One of the most common comments I heard was that the Apple Store succeeded because it carried Apple products and catered to the brand's famously passionate customers. Well, yes, Apple products do pull people into stores. But you don't need to stock iPads to create an irresistible retail environment. You have to create a store that's more than a store to people. People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they're willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn't focused on selling stuff, it's focused on building relationships and trying to make people's lives better. Best of luck creating a great experience that makes people's lives better with shit products.

Yhippa 15y ago

Ron will have an interesting challenge at his new employer. I feel for traditional retail that the customer experience hasn't changed that much. Maybe it's because I'm a guy but when I step into a big store like that I want to know exactly where what I'm looking for is. I haven't seen a good solution to that yet for bigger stores.

dean 15y ago

"how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways" A little off topic, but I have to say that I have never seen a new, latest release model of any Apple product on sale at any of these stores. Not Wal-Mart, not Target, not even Costco and certainly not Best Buy. Apple products just don't go on sale, so the Apple store is not competing against discounts at other stores.

danssig 15y ago
Walmart doesn't typically do sales. What they do do is force vendors to drop prices every year. Can anyone on the inside confirm if they inflict this on Apple (who probably get around it with yearly refreshes) or if Apple is strong enough to tell them to FO with that.

jbrowning 15y ago

In many ways, I think the Apple Store has now become a victim of its own success. Recent discussions on HN and elsewhere mention confusion with the how to actually buy something at the store when all the blue shirts are busy. Most of the stores that I have visited recently are packed with people making it hard for those new to the store to browse and explore. It will be interesting to see what Apple does to address these problems as its stores get even more popular and congested.

jamesbkel 15y ago
In case you missed this: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/in-store-pickup-self-checkout-likely-coming-to-apple-store-near-you.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/in-store-pickup-se... (there was actually a well-commented post about this on HN not too long ago, but after a few min I gave up trying to find it)

BryanB55 15y ago

The most interesting part of this article: How someone could leave Apple to work at JC Penny! Really? For some reason I have a feeling he's doing it mainly for the money, but that's just me speculating...I surely hope not.

philwelch 15y ago
He's CEO of JCPenney. I don't think he would have gotten to that level at Apple. And if your passion is retail, CEO of it's a dream job.
Androsynth 15y ago
If you go to his wiki page, you can see his employment history and get an idea for how much he has been compensated at his various companies. If anything, he was at Apple mainly for the money.
sjwright 15y ago
Or maybe he's keen for a challenge. Sometimes it's better to work for a company that sucks at what you're good at, because there can be greater opportunity to improve things and be rewarded for it.

daimyoyo 15y ago

Something he didn't mention is how Apple is pretty much the only retail store in existence that has items people want to use, and has a policy of letting them use the products as much as they want. I think that's the single biggest difference(well, that and the fact that Apple employees aren't on commision) between Apple and every other electronics retailer. While everyone else is full of people looking to sell you, Apple stands back and let's the products sell themselves. It worked on me.

Angostura 15y ago

Context: I am an Apple fan, I have been using its products for a little over 20 years But am I really the only person who finds the Apple Store a wretched experience? The first time I went into one I was horribly confused - where to I actually pay for stuff? I want some help with a product that I've bought.Can I ask you? I can't. You? No. Oh, I have to visit the Genius bar. Where's the queue for that? Over there? Oh, there is no queue, I have to book online. Or don't I? Who do I ask to find out? Even when I book a Genius Bar appointment, I'm left dangling. Hello, I'm here for my apointment - do I tell anyone? Do I kinda hang about until the time slot is here? Will I be called forward? I hate the places.