The modern era witnessed the rise of bureaucracies— bureaucracies in government, corporations, schools, hospitals and even churches.

In many cases, these complex administrative systems brought welcome efficiency and consistency. Paradoxically, though, they also brought incredible waste and cold monotony.

When it comes to customer service, bureaucratic processes can be assets or liabilities. The key for anyone in a service role is to know when such processes are helping and when they’re hurting both your cause and the customer’s.

Here are a couple of examples of when to skip the process:

1. When your customer/client has a question or request that can be taken care of quickly and painlessly.
2. When you’ve got a pathologically disturbed, obscenity-shouting customer and you just want to get off the phone.

Here’s an audio example, courtesy of Wired, of what happens when a customer service rep ignores both of these examples. Wired describes the exchange as “a battle royale between the rank idiocy of an angry man who can't figure out how to press a power button, versus the institutional incompetence of a support system that can't tell him how to do exactly that without climbing a pointless mountain of customer verification bureacracy.”

Disclaimer: this recording is not for the faint of heart. It is full of obscenities.