Just occasionally I have cause to contact the helpdesk of an online service that I might be using. Most often it's related to some issue that I cannot otherwise resolve, or there is a problem or information mismatch between what I expect on the website and what I get.

This week, I had just such an issue with LinkedIn, a service of which I am a huge fan. I sent a detailed email explaining exactly what I expected to see, and what I was actually getting, and gave as much information as possible about what the problem and issue was.

Today, I get a response to my query. Unfortunately, as happens 9 times out of ten, I've been given a stock response that demonstrates, very clearly that the 'Customer Services Representative' gave a cursory look at my problem, assumed that they knew what the problem was, and tried to answer it by telling me something I already knew.