Over at Popular Mechanics, they spoke to an anonymous Apple Store employee to get the inside scoop on what it’s like working at the iPhone emporium. And the main thing he seems to want people to know is that he knows absolutely nothing about what the company is doing next.

“We are completely in the dark until they do a keynote speech. We have no idea what is coming and are not allowed to openly speculate,” he explains. “You can get into serious trouble if you speculate–especially to a customer. I am asked five times per day about the next iPad or iPhone, and I quite simply don’t know… I actually avoid the technology section of the newspaper so I have no points of view to accidentally comment with or drop into conversation.”

The other annoying topic of conversation is customers looking for unlocked iPhones. “We usually have to tell them that if they unlock their iPhone, it won’t work,” he says. “That it’s going to be like a $700 paperweight, and that the antenna will fry itself on T-Mobile. Of course, that’s not true, but that’s what we tell them.”

And then there’s the drug dealers looking to buy iPhones with fake IDs: “[W]hen they try to check out, they’ll use what are obviously fake IDs or fake credit cards, and it often turns out they’re using a dead person’s Social Security number or something. And when you call them out on that–then, they run.”

When it comes to the worst parts of the job, he says that manning the phones is up there: “The other day, I felt like I was working a suicide hot line. People sometimes call us up and treat us like we’re their therapists. Or we have women who want help with their computers as they try to prove their husbands are cheating on them.”

Finally, there are the customers that act like such brats it makes him question his job choice: “Sometimes it’s like working at McDonald’s, with better pay.”

Confessions of an Apple Store Employee [Popular Mechanics]

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