Why do people act like robots at work?

I was just googling random stuff and saw this:

"ro·bot Origin from Czech, from robota ‘forced labor.’ The term was coined in K. Čapek's play R.U.R. ‘Rossum's Universal Robots’ (1920)."

This explains a lot to me, because during an interaction with a so called human today, i got the feeling that this person was a robot. but then i realize, oh he is at work.

I have noticed this many times, in dealing with tech support at Comcast, Chase Bank, and many other big corporations. It get's on my nerves interacting with slaves every day I guess.