I've gotten to a place where I remove my hard feelings about it, but now what I do is reframe it as "I have to teach this person how to do the job."

I kept running into issues where I would need something particular but I'd constantly get "oh I don't know" or some other low effort reason I couldn't get a service that either I'd already paid for or they kept avoiding resolving my problem. And this was just for bare minimum requests.

So what happens is when I hear "i don't know", or in your case, "oh we'll tell the manager about the issue" essentially putting you off- it's question time! Like this: "oh, I see, the last time I had this situation, customer support habdled it by offering me x,y, and z. How does Moldy Pillow Station handle this as a rule? Oh you don't? Is that normal? Do you have a customer service number I can call to find out more since you don't seem to know off hand?"

I have no lie called corporate customer service right there on speakerphone. I don't ask for a manager. If i need one, i politely ask for an "escalation", but I always have a reason for the escalation. And normally what happens is the questions I ask are enough to get me there, because these people cannot answer them, or if they try their low effort responses, you ask your questions in such a way it forces them to realize their low effort is absurd. This prevents me from having to be forced to "ask for a manager." Instead, I start managing them, assertively, clearly, and most of all, politely. I make them ask for the manager.

I don't expect people to be thrilled with life and with low paying jobs in this economy. But if I paid for something, and I need a refund for damages, if something was bait and switched, or not as promised, that's cutting into my wallet. I'm not going to sit here and smile through a business mugging because the front tier worker is unwilling to ask a question.