[joebob42]

I feel bad for them, and I try to be nice because it's really $COMPANY_NAME I'm mad at, but they're so completely useless and you have to talk to them anyways. It's hard sometimes with the person actively wasting your time, even if it isn't really their fault per se.

I think there's also a bit of a perverse incentive: making it clear that I'm mad / fed up / about to blow my top tends to get me escalated faster.

I've ultimately settled on being pretty clearly angry, without yelling or cursing or blaming them or anything, which is the best compromise I've found between not being too much of a dick, and not having to listen to their entire useless script.