[knowtheory]

Having purchased mobile phones in the past, I have had store reps open the box, boot and test the phone. That seems courteous if that is their intent. And you've got to think that dude sells a lot of phones other than the iPhone, and may well not have appreciated that you have a special personal relationship with Apple (via their devices) that he was interfering with.

That's what I mean by cultural norms. You are essentially demanding that this man accede your preferred experience. This guy may just be totally clueless that this is how you experience devices (because I can tell you a lot of other folks do not experience unboxing the way you do).

And it's okay that you wish to have that experience, and that Apple wishes to facilitate that sort of experience, but to blame this guy for not having known what your expectations are ahead of time, that is what comes off to me as entitled.

Apple pretends that they are mind readers (what they really are is a company that is really good at cultivating expectations that they then meet), and AT&T and your rep are clearly not mind readers and are also bad at cultivating expectations.