I just found a favorite new place to waste my time online, Tales of Corporate Oppression.
I think my favorite so far has to be #38:
At one call centre I worked at it was policy to use the customer’s name five times, no matter how brief the call.
A friend of mine had a lot of trouble with this, so his team leader decided to coach him: listen to his calls and tell him what he should do differently.
The very first call they received was from somebody asking for a service they didn’t provide. The call went like this.
Customer: “Do you provide such and such service?”
Employee: “Can I get your name please?”
Customer: “Sure, it’s John.”
Employee: “John. John, John, John, John, no we don’t, thanks for calling.”