I went to cancel my Time Warner cable at the local service center today, and I complained to the very nice agent who helped me about the extremely loud music and television station that were being broadcast in the shop (yes, they were broadcasting two streams at the same time, and both were playing over each other). She wrinkled her nose and said this:

“I know, it’s really annoying, but management told us to play them very loud. It’s horrible, because we can’t even hear the customers when we deal with them.”

“That’s odd,” I replied. “Why did they tell you to make them so loud?”

“Management said they want all Time Warner service centers to have loud background noise so that if one customer comes in and complains about service, other customers can’t hear them.”

I was shocked. That loud noise is literally an attempt to cover up bad service.

This is just one more reason why Time Warner is one of the most hated companies in the world.