(Reuters)

Apple’s retail stores are among the most successful in the country. And a large part of that success has to do with the company’s vaunted Genius Bars and their blue-shirted Geniuses. These are the people who do everything from restoring your crashed MacBook Pro to repairing your busted iPhone.

But beneath their blue shirts and name badges, they’re just regular guys. We recently sat down with two Apple Geniuses, Greg and Tim — both used pseudonyms — to pick their brains and see what it’s like being the public’s tech support specialists.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that these are just two Geniuses among many, and they don’t represent the thoughts of every Genius out there. Now, on to the good stuff.

“I just needed a job out of college.”

Greg: Initially, I just needed a job out of college; Apple has great health benefits and really solid pay for a young person who needs a job to land on their feet after finishing college. I’ve only ever worked at the Genius Bar. I don’t think I would have stayed at all if I were selling [products]. Sales aren’t really much of a motivator, you know? I think most techs at Apple retail feel that way, too.

“Training is … lots of asking permission, being empathetic, and trying to align with people.”

Tim: When you are a Genius, you are sent out to Apple corporate for three weeks of training. The first week is basic troubleshooting. The second week is all customer interactions, how you should talk to them and listen to them. I think that’s the most important part. The third week is when you fix devices.

Greg: Training is much more focused on how to position information and ask questions. There’s lots of asking permission, being empathetic, and trying to align with people. So, you’re not just saying, “This is broken. It costs this much to repair.”

“The Family Room Specialist role was the worst thing to happen to Apple.”

Tim: The Family Room Specialist role [mobile device and creative specialists] was the worst thing to happen to Apple. They are trained in house, usually by reading pamphlets on iPads or the like, and then are thrown right on the floor. As a result, the Family Room Specialists were either really good at the technical side but couldn’t talk to customers, or they could talk to customers and don’t know the technical side. So Family Room Specialists might replace a perfectly good phone because they didn’t know how to change a setting on it. The Family Room Specialists are giving Geniuses a bad name.

View photos Apple Geniuses in a store selling the iPhone 6 More

“We had one crazy customer every single day.”

Greg: I worked with someone who threw his iPhone across the room and smashed it after we told him he’d have to pay for a replacement. It was already broken. Another woman threw her iPod on the ground after we asked if she’d made an appointment to come in to see us. It bounced off the ground and hit a technician in the face.

Tim: We had one crazy customer every single day. We had a guy come in and his iPhone wasn’t working, and he had a computer in his hand. If the phone part of the iPhone doesn’t work, we consider that a priority, because that’s a major issue. So he’s just screaming at the check-in person that his phone isn’t working and he freaked out and threw his computer on the floor because he was so mad.

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