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Why's the customer service representative pleading like an unseen hit man has a gun to his head? Because he's going to be in Comcast's shithouse if he lets the canceling customer -- whose call he took out of sheer fucking kismet -- waltz off without his account intact. The most the employee can do is scream out an infinite labyrinth of words and pray the customer becomes bored, confused, or frustrated enough to keep the damn account. (That, or starve to death.)

And it's not just a Comcast problem. Back in 2006, one AOL representative famously tried to get a canceling customer's father on the line to cajole him into staying with AOL. Time Warner sweet talks you when you try to leave, but once you say no, they go from "I promise I'll change, babe!" to "YOU'LL PAY, MOTHERFUCKER" -- as in, you'll literally have to keep paying them unless you physically return your cable box to one of their offices, which of course involves putting up with limited hours and DMV-level line length. Comcast does this, too, by the way, and it's no coincidence: These companies know their customers hate them, so they try to make leaving them as inconvenient as possible.

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But maybe they shouldn't bother, since ...