This is just an aside: Why are we laughing about this when in fact so many of our interactions with those sorts of people (I just talked to someone at US Airways…) are exactly like that (sometimes literally: My wife told me the other day that someone had actually said “Computer says no” to her)? Oh sure, I can see how laughing about it takes away some of the rage. But aren’t companies just counting on this now, on us getting some relief by laughing about the very behaviour they subject us to?