I've only experienced issues once with a local store, and a call to Apple's Customer Hotline (or whatever it's called) fixed that real quick. I was in a situat

I've only experienced issues once with a local store, and a call to Apple's Customer Hotline (or whatever it's called) fixed that real quick. I was in a situation similar to yours (starting a new job, had to have the machine), and I was told I had to wait for them to repair it. After a number of back and forth conversations over a day or so and the manager ignoring me for a second time when I tried to appeal in person, I called the hotline. The store called 2 hours later to tell me to pick up a new, updated machine, ready to use with my data transferred over (keep in mind the issue I took the original machine in for was super minor). I know it's anecdotal, but every time I've had to interface with Apple people, it's been nothing but pleasant (even with the App Store).