Customer Service...A *@#!$% Forgotten Experience

I'm not a great traveler of the world, but what I saw on this last trip at the airports has made me almost glad that I'm not. It started when we arrived at our hometown airport and found that you no longer check in with a person but rather a machine which, by the way, required a credit card for each person checking in. We had wanted to upgrade or change our seats to make our long journey to the Empire State a little more comfortable. MSO started to ask one of the workers there about how he could go about this, but she just kept saying "Check in" while pointing to the very inviting machine. Once we checked in with Mr. Machine, she then told us that we should have tried in the morning to get our seats changed. Nice. We then discovered that baby should have gotten a boarding pass as well. I chided to MSO about not finding this out ahead of time, but he said he had spoken to three different agents over the phone and none of them informed him that we needed one. Sorry, my bad.
To add to our wonderful start, we decided to "gate-check" our stroller which may have been a mistake. The worker there asked us if we were going beyond the first stop, ORD, and we said 'Yes.' We were never told that we had to "gate-check" our stroller at each stop. As a result of this lack of information, the much needed stroller got a much delayed arrival. This stroller also got damaged on its way back home and was left out on the sidewalk outside the gate area with other strollers and walkers 'cause they were going to catch the Wiki Wiki shuttle. Yeah. Don't know why our airport (or is it the airline?) places all the strollers and walkers outside where anyone can just take it, but that's what happened.
Yet another big kick in our asses while we're down was the fact that baby's car seat got lost en route to our destination. The lovely airline baggage claim service person (yes, one person for a long line) was not so lovely in the personality kind of sense. Just what you need is to deal with an unfriendly person after a long, uncomfortable plane ride. We weren't going to pay $9 a day to the car rental company for a car seat after lugging our own seat, so the airlines "graciously" provided a loaner seat. Imagine having a vehicle with LATCH capability and not being able to use it because the seat does not have the strap to utilize that capability. Now imagine our disappointment, struggle, and frowned faces.
We eventually did get our car seat the next day at the hotel although it was by sheer chance that we found out that it had been delivered. We were leaving to go out and the hotel clerk asked us if we knew that our car seat was there. We said 'No' as the airline was supposed to have called MSO but of course didn't. Bastards. Car seat got installed, loaner got kicked to the curb, and off we went.
We also made a shocking discover that airlines no longer provide meals. You have to buy it for $5! Another airline actually charged $1 for the nuts! That's just crazy.
Of course the forgotten experience of adequate customer service is not only at airports. Seems as if many places you go to, including your childhood McDonald's, you are bound to go away with a feeling of anger, disappointment, irritability, etc.
Where has your worst customer service experience occurred?