Whenever I've had to bring my computer in, they've always told me to create a new account called something like "Apple" or "Apple Store", and they probably should have asked for the same thing from her.
I suppose there are times where the computer won't boot and they really don't have any other choice besides asking you for your password--the employee might have just mixed up their protocol, though that's not to say that it excuses that mistake.
From the anecdotes here, it sounds like that's just smart employees or a manager at your store making that decision. It really should be company policy.
They've never asked me to create a separate account, only turn over the main account. I still don't trust anyone with my user account, and so made one name AppleSupport, and enabled FileVault on my user.
One would think that for a company so concerned with internal privacy they would care a little more for their users...
How is it that they need to know the password in that instance? If the problem is that the computer doesn't boot, they just have to get it to boot, not log in to your profile and start monkeying around.
I suppose there are times where the computer won't boot and they really don't have any other choice besides asking you for your password--the employee might have just mixed up their protocol, though that's not to say that it excuses that mistake.