[azurelogic]

Regardless of the questions about the story, as a former Apple retail employee, I can tell you that this isn't an unrealistic story. I had a few interactions with people who were deaf that worked much like this. It was always a memorable and uplifting experience to find ways to use our demo units for more productive purposes.

[mistercow]

As an also former Apple retail employee, I disagree with you that this isn't an unrealistic story. There are a lot of red flags here, many of which are not Apple Store specific, and some of which are.

The fact that a Mac sales guy was walking back and forth from stockroom to floor, fetching each MacBook for 15 students individually, and no manager took him aside to ask what the hell he thought he was doing, did he not notice that [unidentified product X] had just launched and that the store was full of waiting customers... does not ring true.

[nsp]

I worked at the store the OP worked at, and his story seems accurate. The 5th avenue store does more $/sq foot than anywhere else in the US, and grosses more than any other retail store in New York. In early 2012 the 5th avenue store got 'runners', who would bring the computers out to you, but it was often faster to run back and get it yourself. I sold ~30-50k of macs a night and would frequently be seen running back and forth to the floor with my arms full of laptops - this didn't attract negative manager attention - I was making sales.

His story checks out - I'm happy to answer any other questions re: 5th ave

[ebbv]

You're confused. OP did not work in the 5th avenue store. He said his store was in a mall with a food court.

[rdl]

There's also the "use Google Translate to talk (in writing) to someone in a foreign language, without a language in common" that I've done several times.

[wilfra]

This is how I communicated with banks when I lived in China. Baidu translate. They were trained to do this with foreigners.

[snogglethorpe]

I hope it's better than Google translate with Japanese, because that's almost completely unusable for anything longer than one or two words. GT does much better with European languages to/from English, I suppose because of the shared ancestry...