I had this big mess with my whole flight itinerary, and I was stuck at an airport for like 30 hours with nothing to do.

I got the airline's customer service on the phone. They were refusing to compensate me, I was livid but I just did exactly what Bill said: Don't curse and they can't hang up.

I talked really, really slowly. The intercoms in the airport would sound off periodically and I'd just wait until they stopped then ask the rep to repeat himself. So he'd repeat a point that he already made like 15 times. And I'd just keep feigning that I misunderstood the point he was trying to make.

I just kept talking in an infinite circle about common law, and the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and running through all these increasingly ridiculous hypothetical scenarios of overbooking and flight delays and which party should be liable in those scenarios and for what reason, and on and on...

Bill is right about them not being allowed to hang up. I had him on the phone for over an hour.

He kept it together for a while, but toward the end I could tell that he was starting to crack. Then he made some unprompted comment about how he didn't care because he was getting paid to deal with me, and shortly after that, the line just abruptly cut off mid-sentence.

I got a callback the next morning offering me a $200 airline certificate, a hotel voucher, and a meal voucher.

True story.

At the time I was just really angry about my travel getting screwed up, and especially about not having a place to sleep, and being stuck in an airport terminal. And all that anger just channeled into this game of calmly wasting that guy's time.

But in hindsight, what I did was a very unjustified and shitty thing to do, and I was rewarded handsomely for it. And that guy may have been reprimanded through no fault of his own. I don't feel great about it and won't be doing it again.