> Bad people react to this by getting angry at the gate attendant; good people walk away stewing with thwarted rage.

> You ask to speak to someone who can do something about it, but you're told that's not company policy.

People somewhere in between realise that the point of the gate attendant (or Level 1 tech support person) is to shield management from customers, so you have to outflank the shield.

Being yelled at by a customer is bad for the Level 1 support person, although there's usually a policy in place for phone support that you can hang up if the customer is getting aggressive. What's much worse is saying to management "hey here's something you might want to look at" and being super yelled at by their boss for not doing their duty of keeping the customer away from the higher-ups. That kind of thing can get you fired.

But you can hack the system in many ways. The point is to find someone higher up without going through the person who's not allowed to help you, and without blaming them for doing their job.

Some possibilities: find the higher-ups on linkedin, speak to a company rep or executive personally at an event if your professional circles overlap, send a printed physical letter to someone in control, and so on.

Something I've seen work many times: if you're a student, find out about the university's management structure and ask for a personal meeting with the Dean of X of whoever sits above the department admin person who's assignment is "we've taken this decision, now make the students happy with it". A dozen students asking to personally speak with the Dean or President lets them know something's up and the shield was ineffective. Since there's usally some kind of statement of values about how the "student experience" is central to everything they do (read: "students are paying customers"), they can't just turn you away.