Interesting. My wife always asks me to make such calls because she thinks service people show more respect to men. I’ll have to tell her about the ‘threatening to cry’ angle.
I always ask for a supervisor or manager, and I’m polite to the extreme when I do. I learned how to do that when I was a CSR, and not having had a man around since 1989, I do fairly well without threatening to cry. Of course, being a military wife and mother for 30 years helps, too...but, ya know...? Whatever it takes to get the job done.
When you’ve got an older gentleman on the phone, the possibility of hysterics can make him cough up a technician, tomorrow.
It’s not an act - I really will have a meltdown in short order without my washer. I’ve left Tom at the Laundromat, burning through $20 in quarters.