... and my wife's experience at that call center brings me to #2.

<rant>
OMG, the stories that she used to bring home from work about the parade of lunatics, maniacs, morons, idiots, blowhards, and other dregs of humanity with which she had to deal. Yes, your average customer service rep is underpaid, overworked, stressed out from constant monitoring and having to deal with the most ridiculous things imaginable. Plus since they are the "front person" for the company, they get verbally insulted and attacked by people who just don't realize that whatever problem you're dealing with, you're not talking to the person who caused it but a person who can go a long way to making it better if you just use some common sense and little courtesy.
</rant>

Regarding #10 (Blow in cards) -- my wife used to work at a call center that handled calls for all of the Time/Life publications (including People, Sports Illustrated, etc) and she used to get complaint calls about those all the time. Apparently if you call you can actually request that your magazine subscription does not include blow-in cards. Don't know if that's still true or not, or if that will work with all publishers, but it's worth a try.