Haha, I've definitely noted the House parallel before! I once gave a presentation to my team where "everybody lies" was the main focus. Extracting the correct information even from other engineers can be a real exercise. I eventually came up with the exact seventeen words necessary to get QA to tell you exactly what the problem was, and I felt like a real techno-mage.

I've led a privileged life where I never had to hold a customer service role, as I'm confident that shoveling horse manure is more pleasant.