No Service In Customer Service

Everyone has a horror story or two about receiving abysmal customer service somewhere.  Kids that don't have a clue what customer service is and really don't care, companies that locate their call centers in other countries, I could go on and on.  However, there are some places where customer service is so bad, it takes on epic proportions.  The DMV comes to mind.  Since everyone has to register their vehicles, we all end up there sooner or later.  There are specific requirements to getting your vehicle registered and these requirements are posted at the DMV itself as well as on their website.  Invariably some poor soul will show up, stand in line for an hour (since no one's in a hurry who works there) only to discover, once he reaches the window, that he's forgotten one of those required pieces.  It's his own fault that he didn't bring everything, but since there's no sense of urgency by any of the employees, a huge chunk of his time has been lost.  Once, while I was in line I saw this happen.  The man didn't get angry, he just sighed and left.  Instead of moving to the next person in line, the clerk came out from behind the counter with a highlighter and began highlighting the poster that listed what was needed, all the while loudly berating the "stupid people" who forgot and wasted her time.  I guess making us wait longer while she colored, didn't count.  Another place with wretched customer service is the Court House.  The County Clerk's Office in particular.  Once I went in to pay my property taxes in person since they had lost my check. (That's a whole other story!) At 2:30 in the afternoon, they were having a baby shower for one of the girls who worked in the office.  When I finally got a clerk to come up and help me, she acted as if I, and the other people in line, were a huge interruption of her day.  She actually complained that she wasn't getting to see the Mom-to-be open her gifts.  Really?  And my tax dollars are paying your salary?  The one that takes the cake is a local hospital in my area.  The back story is I live in a city that straddles two states.  My cell phone number is the same as a pediatric doctor, who deals with very, very sick kids, except for the area code.  I'm in one state, he's in another.  I get lots of calls from parents who are trying desperately to get in touch with their child's doctor.  I always call them back and direct them to the right place.  Not long ago, I saw that I had gotten a call from a number I didn't recognize and the message was garbled but I understood enough to know it was about a sick kid.  I called the number and got the operator for this particular hospital that will remain nameless.  I explained why I was calling and the woman interrupted me to say she couldn't help me.  I again tried to explain and she again interrupted, this time demanding to know if I was a patient.  When I said no and finally got to explain why I was calling, she very brusquely told me that there was no way to know who had called me since it was a hospital with many phone locations.  Basically her attitude was that she couldn't help me and didn't care.  I managed to keep my cool, thanked her and said I hoped the people who had called were eventually able to figure it out.  She said "Whatever" and hung up on me.  I sent a nasty letter to the hospital that afternoon.  You can't help me?  OK, I can deal with that, but there's absolutely no reason to be rude about it. Would it kill you to pretend to care? People behaving badly.