Grrr indeed.
They ask it because they work in call centres, because some overpaid, slack-jawed oxygen-thief with a marketing degree and minimal basic social skills has studied "vertical selling strategies in key strike-zone demographics" and decided that this is how the general public likes to be addressed, and because the aforementioned phone monkeys (among which I once counted myself, as if you hadn't fucking guessed) know that their calls can be monitored at any time, without their permission or even their knowledge, and failure to drop at least 3 of these "buzz-phrases" into any single conversation may well result in a disciplinary.

Hate the game, not the poor fuckers forced to play it.
(Monkey Tennis isn't Spartacus, Wed 7 May 2008, 11:47, Reply)