Has it ever occurred to you that call center agents view customers, especially the annoying and self entitled ones, the same way ? They are disembodied. All we hear is a voice, so there's little chance to have a human connection - Exactly, all we get to hear is a voice, sometimes angry, on the other side and not a human being. We tend only to call them when something has gone wrong - so we're already angry. - And then direct this at the poor soul who has to pick up your call and not at the company owners. Great choice. They follow a script without deviation. They may as well be robots. - Same as customers who only go "I want, I want, I want". Shoddy programming here. Lack of empowerment. When you complain to a call center worker, you know they're not going to do anything about it. Their bosses don't give them any power to make changes. - Then why bother if you believe that ? Which is certainly not true at my level for example. But if someone just yells at me I might not use my magic powers to assist someone beyond the basics. If you are nice I will be nice, if you are a shitty whiner then I will keep it to the bare minimum. Acting merely as an interface. Every call center worker I've spoken to listens to me, types stuff into a computer, then reads back what the computer says. Why not just give me access to that computer? The worker is little more than a cheap "speech to text" interface. Like Siri without the personality. - Wanna figure out the modem interface and high frequency tools I work with ? Guess not. Zero continuity of personality. Each time I ring my insurance company, I speak to someone different. There’s no relationship or rapport - just another lonely voice which doesn't really care about my problems. - So you want a personal concierge service for the 29.99 you pay a month ? Maybe also a massage ? It's easier to understand Stephen Hawking's rudimentary text-to-speech interface than it is to understand some people's accents. Language skills are a key element of the Turing Test - if I can't understand your language, can I properly regard you as human? - Funny aspect, considering the dialects and accents of some customers we might need a degree in linguistics to do out job. Might as well let your dog bark into the phone. "Can you wait a moment, sir; my system is running slowly today." Every call center worker I've spoken to has a slow computer. Without their computer they are unable to function. They may as well be that computer. - "Oh no my pc crashed". "You want to test something, let me turn my computer back on"....10 minutes later...."It's almost ready, it's an older piece...".. "I'll make sure someone calls you back." No you won't, you lying sack of shit. No one ever calls back - "I demand that someone calls me back". Because you are too lazy to check the Led on your Modem yourself ? Or to rant for another 10 minutes about unrelated stuff and waste my and your time. All in all - be nice to your call center agent instead of a douche. You might be surprised how well that works. If you want to complain find out the address of the owners and write them a nice letter.