When it’s politically correct. via Moe Lane.
Smoking Near Apple Computers Creates Biohazard, Voids Warranty
Unless you’ve just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn’t good for you. Did you know, that smoking isn’t good for your computer, either? It’s true, at least according to Apple. Two readers in different parts of the country claim that their Applecare warranties were voided due to secondhand smoke. Both readers appealed their cases up to the office of God Steve Jobs himself. Both lost.
I bought an iMac for my son (for school) along with the extended Applecare warranty. A month ago, it quit working. My son took it to the authorized Mac service center. The “tech” informed him it would be ready in 48-72 hours. Five days go by and he’s heard nothing, so I called. They informed me that his computer can’t be worked on because it’s contaminated.
When I asked for an explanation, she said he’s a smoker and it’s contaminated with cigarette smoke which they consider a bio-hazard! I checked my Applecare warranty and it says nothing about not honoring warranties if the owner is a smoker. The Applecare representative said they defer to the technician and my son’s computer cannot be fixed at any Apple Service Center due to being listed a bio-hazard.
The response from Apple.
Dena [from Jobs’ office] did advise me that nicotine is on OSHA’s list of hazardous substances and Apple would not require an employee to repair anything deemed hazardous to their health. However, OSHA also lists calcium carbonate (found in calcium tablets), isopropyl alcohol (used to clean wounds), chlorine (used in swimming pools), hydrogen peroxide (also used to clean wounds), sucrose (a sugar), talc (as in powder), etc… as hazardous substances.
…
Dena set up an appointment at the same Apple store. They told me that they would take pictures of the computer - both inside and out before determining whether to proceed and that if the only problem was the optical drive, they’d probably just replace it. Dena called me earlier this week to deliver the “bad news.” She said that the computer is beyond economical repair due to tar from cigarette smoke! She said the hard drive is about to fail, the optical drive has failed and it isn’t feasible to repair the computer under the warranty. This computer is less than 2 years old! Only one person in my household smokes - one 21 year old college student. She said that I can get it repaired elsewhere at my expense. I asked why my warranty didn’t cover the repair and was told it’s an OSHA violation.
I call Bullshit on the OSHA violation. Since they wouldn’t work on the computer how did they determine the hard drive was about to fail? She paid three grand for this piece of crap and a hard drive and optical drive cost too much for an economical repair? I think they need to get a second opinion from some company that isn’t Politically Correct. Or they could get an AMD powered HP for half the price that’s faster, has more RAM, a bigger HD and Bluray.
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I’ve never owned an Apple, primarily because most (not you, Mike) of the owners I’ve seen here in SF are insufferable pricks.
They really do act as if they believe that Apple is “the computer for the best of us.”
Fuggem.
I must reluctantly, sadly agree with that one, Bill, at least somewhat. I know a lot of good folks — ie, not insufferable smarmy liberal pricks — around my neck of the woods who are Mac geeks, but there’s no denying that a hell of a lot of diehard Mac people are…well, insufferable smarmy liberal pricks. And I don’t even like to think about the whole Al Gore thing.
On the other hand, though, there’s Rush Limbaugh…
Oh, and Stephen Green too. So we got a couple of the good guys going for us, at least.
Well, I’ve lived in Colo., and the last time I was in Boulder (about ten years ago) the coffee houses there were indistinguishable from the ones in San Francisco, at least as far as clientele went (mostly insufferable smarmy liberal pricks writing novels in broad daylight, gawd help us).
And Macs as far as the eye could see.
Mac owners are similar to Prius owners. Some are decent people (very few) the rest really are the typical democrat: smug, self centered and insufferable. I also am paranoid and think that PC viruses were developed by Apple as a means to push their overpriced toys.
Heh. Very true. I do, however, know of at least a few former Tomcat (that would be the venerable F-14…) drivers who drive a Prius.
I’m a Mac owner, and wouldn’t use anything else for personal use. That’s just how I roll. No reason to justify it beyond comfort and convenience.
But the above is just pure, shiny, patent bullshit. That is the most amazing attempt to weasel out of a warranty obligation I’ve seen in a long time. I hope this is publicized far and wide.
Viruses? Aren’t those what you get the flu from?
You commercial heathen. Macs are more likely to get viruses than us pure, “OS for the rest of us” Linux users are likely to.
Heh. Guilty as charged.
I suspect that this “technician” opened the machine up, smelled stale tobacco smoke on it or in it and went off from there. I know my PC’s have suffered the debilitating smoke from the wife’s cigarettes for nine or ten years and they are still burbling along.
In short the flake in the shop is a nut who shouldn’t be allowed near electrical outlets with metal tools.
No, the issue is the mindset that is unable to evaluate risk due to PC indoctrination.
To these morons, who are told constantly that being within 100 yards of any nicotine product will cause them to die of cancer within a week or two, their reaction seems perfectly logical.
The real insanity is the lemming-like mass lunacy of PC itself, a mental virus far more infectious and debilitating than anything it purports to protect us from. (And all PC pretends to “protect” us - from the sin of racism, sexism, smoking, whatever….
Apple also gets great consumer satisfaction scores consistently and there a lot of equally valid great service stories as well. And yeah, I’ve owned more that a few Apples…yeah, figures. The smoke thing is stupid, dumb ass pc. But I always say you get what you pay for. And with OS X I get a stable, flexible unix os. Macs are more expensive but they are the perfect, out of the box, digital media creation machine.