Comment by cess11

No they weren't. If I say 'this thermos is a worthless piece of shit' that does not make me a bad person. Some religious tradition or other might argue that using negatively loaded words is bad for my soul or whatever and that's kind of the position you've taken.

Same goes for corporations. They aren't real people, and when you act as a representative of one you also aren't a real person, you're taking on a persona and doing theater. If someone says something mean about you as such a persona that's like someone saying that Orpheus was stupid for looking back.

Now this doesn't mean it's generally fine to be nasty to customer support, because they don't represent the corporation since they have no power over it, unlike e.g. the CEO or the board.