> The kids knew sign language?

No, but neither did the author so he couldn't tell they were making signs up.

> The kids went and bought stuff (incl laptops) at multiple stores?

No, it just says they browsed other stores.

> And wasn't there a long line at Apple? How'd they make it to so many other stores?

Apple lines are product-specific. If there is a line to buy the new iPhone, you can still go in and buy other products. That is why they manage those lines the way they do.

> The kids physically go to the store to buy school computers?

Sure, why not? Private schools can do things however they want.

> The kids are such good actors that they fooled the author & all other salespeople?

How hard is it to act deaf?

> A teacher would actually allow kids to pretend that they're disabled?

Sure, if the point is to give them a taste of what social interactions feel like to disabled people.

> No bulk discount or pre-arranged deal?

Speaking of unbelievable...this is Apple, right? Not known for their eagerness to cut a deal.

> All other employees in the mall were mean to deaf kids?

Not mean, but maybe not too psyched to have to deal with them.

> Author doesn't remember which Apple product was debuting?

Or maybe they don't want to reveal the exact timing of the story, which naming the product release would do to the day.

> I hate to be "that guy" -- but this story is most likely fiction.

We just had a story on here the other day about a gay couple who found their son in the subway. Life is strange sometimes.

I don't understand why someone would lie about this. For HN karma?

I am guessing the author pulled a Broder/Tesla situation on this story. Gist may be true, but the details were fuzzed for a better story/self aggrandizement. I particularly don't buy the whole "You were the only nice person to these poor 'deaf' children all day" angle. I have worked fairly often with people in the deaf and blind communities and if anything they complain that people treat them too kindly in general and not as a normal person.

As for a reason why the author would lie, a quick persual of his site makes it pretty clear he is trying to kickstart his career in the Apple blogger niche. Story like this may be a good way to get it started.

> No, but neither did the author so he couldn't tell they were making signs up.

I'm sure a bunch of high school students' pretend sign language would be quite easy to spot for a decently intelligent adult, especially if you have to interact with them one by one.

> No, it just says they browsed other stores.

Explains a bit about why other stores were not as nice to them then, if they didn't actually buy anything...

> How hard is it to act deaf?

I'd say pretty damn hard if you were in high school, in a group, on a field trip.

> Speaking of unbelievable...this is Apple, right? Not known for their eagerness to cut a deal.

Apple does give bulk discounts, and if it's for a school I'm sure they should be in a program like that instead of paying retail.

> I don't understand why someone would lie about this.

People just do, for various reasons. Some you may understand, some you may not, but that doesn't change the fact that people do lie (especially for HN karma :P)

I had a similar situation while working at a hostel.

A couple walked into my hostel and they were both just beaming these beautiful smiles. They were the kind of people who are just so happy to be on vacation it makes me happy to tell them all of the crazy shit they can enjoy in the city. I stood up and beamed a smile back to them asking them if they were there to check in or if they needed a reservation. They looked at each other, then me, and started to sign.

I panic'd... My mother was friends with a guy who lived in a retirement home because a grenade had taken his eyes in world war two and I often spent time with him and became acquainted with the blind and the nuance of interacting such that we could both make sure we were completely understood, but there have been very few interactions in my life with deaf people and so at this moment in the hostel I was simply unprepared.

The couple saw my panic and laughed and the guy signed using his finger a as a pencil and his other palm as a notebook.

No shit! Write it down. I got us some paper and everything was smooth from there. I got them a room, a deal, and told them where the best place to catch some romance in the city was.

The writer's reaction and feelings toward the interaction mirrored my own quite well. I can believe it, but if it is a fiction, at least it is an accurate one.

Joycer if you see this just thought I'd tell you you're hell banned. It looks like you've been hell banned since the very beginning. I thought this comment was good and you should know. I can't reply to your message either, no one can.

I agree, maybe he dramatized it a little bit to make the story more interesting but I can't see the story as a whole being anything other that plausible.

I worked for Apple for about three years a while back and served maybe five or six deaf people over that time opting for TextEdit or a small paper pad for communication in all but one of those situations where the customer's daughter came along and translated his signing for me.

I'd also like to add that this may have been a class of students who were in a sign-language class...

I did an experiment similar to this in highschool where we were supposed to go without hearing, sight, or speech for a few days. The specifics are fuzzed but there were a lot of kids walking around with things covering their eyes.

It was a cool little experiment and it sounds like this teacher took it a little further. It also sounds like most good stories that I know, mostly fact but a little fiction in there to spice it up rather than saying... well shit I just don't remember that detail...

Apple does cut deals on batches of computers, but if the student is keeping the device then it is individual orders at the student rate.

Apple does offer about 10% off for bulk discounts (between 5 - 12% roughly). They may have not known, been signed up or just let students choose themselves.

The most obvious reason would be advertisement.

I had the exact same reaction. This story has all the telltale signs of typical internet fiction trying to pass as a real story. Lack of details (no names of the school, teacher, etc., no date) combined with an implausible "this doesn't happen to anyone" story line is the biggest giveaway.

It's unfortunate that people are so eager to believe a happy story that they will suppress their bullshit detectors. The truth is important even when the lie is pleasant.

Glad to see this comment is at the top, disappointed to see the story voted so highly in the first place, though.

Admittedly in a few regards the story sounds not-quite-right. However I think if it was "typical internet fiction" then it wouldn't have ended with the revelation that the kids weren't deaf after all. Why deflate the punchline like that?

If pure glurge fiction, it would have ended with the narrator, or more likely the Apple store manager, receiving a note from the school, relating how the deaf kids had been treated poorly at every other store. Better yet, one of the deaf kids would have had a powerful father who went to the Apple store and lavished rewards on all the employees there. Father might even work for Microsoft. Let your imagination run wild.

Without that bit the story would've been "Hey some deaf kids visited my store." It still would have been unusual but that last crazy detail is what makes it a remarkable story, and it's the part that makes the narrator a hero.

It's also the part that goes from pushing the boundaries of believability and bursts full on into being obvious fiction.

I see nothing in this story that is implausible. Odd and unusual things happen all the time. In fact, the unusualness is what makes the story. I really don't get why people want to jump all over people's odd experiences an declare them "totally fake bra, you wouldn't dare be nice as a service employee", or maybe "in your job where you are dealing with hundreds of strangers a week, not one of them (or some of them) could have been an unusual case". It's like saying: I have a raid 6 at home. It's never lost data, and not one of the hard drives ever failed, Backblaze must be lying about the part where they have hard drives fail.

If you think teachers having kids role play the lives of other people is so crazy as to not have happened, I'm not sure what to tell you. I know that when I was a kid, one of the summer camps I went to did similar things. One year it was just live your day in a wheelchair. Another year it was role-play the lives of a very poor family, and have figure out how to handle a broken arm in one of the kids and still pay rent, eat, etc. These included going out into the world, not just staying in the camp.

I've heard other people who in school had to wear "pregnant suits" or carry "babies", or go around with blindfolds, and so on, to help them understand the situation other people may be in.

Perhaps it's the part where a mall worker runs into someone in another part of the mall later that day. I'm not sure how this even comes close to improbable. I've run into clerks who helped me in the food court before.

Overall, I'd rate this story as Extremely plausible. No single element of it is at all sketchy. Some of the coincidences are less likely to happen, but again, not even deserving of a rating rare, merely unlikely.

If the story teller had a 100 stories like this I would be more suspicious, but a single event that is unlikely is pretty believable.

Your characterization of the skepticism in this comment thread is completely ridiculous, and shows your lack of intellectual seriousness.

Additionally, you insist that you don't understand our reasons for skepticism, and bring up total straw men when we have clearly explained our reasons.

I'm not going to sit here and try to convince you that it's bullshit. You clearly don't want to be convinced. You want to believe it. That's fine. Go ahead. But you do an incredibly poor job of being an advocate for the OP.

To me, it's as obvious that he's lying as it is the sky is blue.

Ahh, so you accuse me of essentially magical thinking because I can't see anything unplausible in the story. Yet you refuse to explain, other than declaring "it's so obvious derp", and think you won't be accused of magical thinking?

As for your "clearly explained reasons", they are as I understand them:

1) the guy was nice oh no!

2) There were some events you've never experienced, therefore must strictly be false.

3) The guy talked about his experiences on his blog - obvious liar, not just telling about his life on a medium heavily used for that.

4) He doesn't remember every detail of something that happened some years ago. You know what. I am certain I don't remember every detail of every thing that happened to me too... sorry this is not even remotely useful criteria.

So, explain to me how the guy is obviously lying based on some pretty weak critera, and some really plausible events.

Right now you are just calling me stupid when I am trying to understand you - this is the type of bullshit that makes me wonder why I would even give credit to your claims. As soon as someone questions them, you claim "you are stupid" instead of explanation. Not a good way of being convincing or practical in an argument.

fiction or non-fiction, this story sent chills down my spine ...

I don't think anyone who'd actually had this happen to them would've written it as a "happy story." This is inconsiderate bullshit. You would have to be a pretty awful teacher to put a class of immature children in the position of deceiving people as a social experiment.

If this person had actually been working retail during a massive launch and found out these kids had been messing with him on their teacher's orders, the reasonable reaction would have been -- at very least -- "you should be ashamed of yourselves." And being a retail employee during such a shitstorm would almost certainly have precluded that much tact.

True or false, this just is not something a decent person (the teacher) would choose to do, for any of several reasons.

I have news for you, the movies that are showing on the cinema are works of fiction (mostly)

This doesn't mean we should throw them out because they were invented.

It may be fiction, but it certainly has less BS than many true stories.

The difference is those are presented as being fiction and this is being presented as a true story.

If this blog post were presented honestly, as a work of fiction, it would never have made it to the top of HN. Nobody would care. Because as fiction it's not interesting.

Sure, even though there are some works of fiction that begin "based on a true story" or something similar

For the record I do believe it's a true story, even if the details are fuzzy, or maybe some things have been forgotten by the person telling the story.

Who cares. I don't think the story is all that unlikely.

And to quote my late grandfather: There are no true or false stories, only good ones and bad ones.

Your grandfather sounds like a liar.

Come to think of it, this story isn't about Apple or the Apple Store at all. A better title would be "The Time I Wasn't Mean to Fake Deaf Kids and Felt Great About It".

The Apple Store part was to get internet points.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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...

And why were there tears at the end? Was everyone so moved at the theoretical plight of real deaf kids that they broke down?

Also, I imagine real deaf people don't have a habit of walking up to salespeople and assuming they know sign language.

And even if they did, I think they would get the hint pretty quick that the other side doesn't understand it...

It's so obviously fake, anyone that has one or has ever been on a school field trip would know that it would be impossible to get then to keep quiet. They'd giggle and one would say something within about 15 seconds.

And the guy doesn't remember what product had just launched :)

I feel really sorry for the guy, trying to get attention like this. Pretty desperate.

Obvious shitthatdidnthappen.txt

And what's more, it's taking up the top spot on HN, which could be used for a real story that might have better social justice advice than "don't be a dick".

Or just "Bitcoin is at a new high"

I am sorry to have agree with you, but yes the contradictions did start piling up. As they say, photos, please, or it didn't happen.

A picture of a bunch of kids and a teacher would prove what exactly?

Sorry dark, that bit... was a joke. It was playing on a common internet saying that people say to their friends (and others) when they say something, you know, like, I meet the Prezz, surly you have run into it before. Jezz I hate having to explain my jokes. I'll need to get that looked at.

As was my comment, so we're even. ;)

Touché my friend ;)

You think someone would really do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y...

Classic Hacker News any more - top comment is a cynic. Even if this isn't true, what would the point be for lying? And what really is the harm done?

Not a cynic, a skeptic. And that's pud, who's a pretty major hacker.

Also pretty major cynic, I mean he ran "fuckedcompany" which was essentially schadenfreude central.

Oh so that explains why it's the top comment on an otherwise benign post. He's a pretty major hacker, whatever that means, so people just upvote him because of that?

People upvote him because they trust him. He's got a track record of being reasonable.

Attention seeking obviously. That's the point why the op made it up. There's no harm done, except wasting a bunch of people's time.

Why the story being untrue makes it a waste of time for everybody?

I think the top comment should always be a contrary response to the original post. In this case, skepticism is appropriate.

Get traffic, make the author look good, make Apple look good, ???, profit.

C'mon.

Also, Mac Specialists at the Apple store don't go in the back to fetch inventory. They call it back.

It hasn't always been that way actually. I worked apple retail while in college for 2 years, and we only had 'runners' to bring inventory up from the back the last 6 months I was there... and the white macbooks were released at the time the "Specialists" (salespeople) were responsible for doing the running themselves.

They did at his store - it's substantially faster than waiting

It is not faster than waiting, because there's no waiting. You do other things while it's being brought out, like trying to sell attachments to the customer or (in this case), finding out what the next student wants. Behaving inefficiently and adding traffic to the back on a busy launch day is simple incompetence.

> The kids knew sign language?

all it really takes is one kid in the group knowing sign language. It is actually not that uncommon since it counts as a second language and there has been a bit of a craze to teach babies to sign. It also clusters around deaf children since their friends tend to pick up sign[1].

1) remember children, signing to your friend at church still counts as talking during the mass

And just who were these mysterious evil people that apparently hate deaf kids..

ed: woop my bad, you covered that

My first thought too. What kind of budget did the kids have on this day out? How do I get my kids into that school?

> How do I get my kids into that school?

Paying $30K - $50K a year in tuition fees should do it.

Hugs and tears?