It really depends on what sort of organization you're dealing with. My credit union has always been a pleasure to deal with because their phone people are all hired and trained locally. On the other hand they only take calls during business hours which can be a little awkward when I'm in another timezone.

That's like saying death is a good thing because you still get to live a few decades.

That's not a terribly uncommon position, not everyone wants to live forever. Arguably it's a healthy attitude to take, since death will come for you eventually whether or not you make peace with that inevitability.

Lots of people say that every time the subject of human immortality arises.

I had this experience once and it was the result of finally getting a local call centre with better trained and empowered employees (most calls were being farmed out to overseas call centres which followed a very simple script).