I get to work and find an envelope with my name on it propped up on my desk.

Inside is an invoice from a courier company. It’s for £28. I turn it over to see whether there’s any clue as to what this is about on the back. There isn’t.

I sip my coffee and study the front page. It’s something to do with HMRC and VAT.

But what, I have no idea. I do what any reasonable person might do in this situation. I leave it on my desk, tucked behind my monitor, and forget about it.

Ten days later, there’s another one. This time, it’s getting a bit nasty.

I dial the number at the bottom. Our opening hours are nine to five, says the cheery recorded voice. At ten past nine. I call again.

It’s early enough in the morning for me not to have started anything that requires prolongued train of thought. In fact, I’m still eating my second chocolate biscuit. So while the automated reply system takes me through the many telephonic routes you could choose in your bid to tell a courier company to take a running jump, my blood sugar is comfortably high and my brain is in hibernation.

There are times when I could be building up to a stroke, listening to some electronic stranger telling me to press one for accounts payable, two for air way bills, but this is not one of those times. I idly look out of the window, where a pair of birds are stripping frosted berries off a bush and a man walking past in a smart overcoat suddenly slips on the pathway and is on his bum before you can say press three for a customer services advisor. I come back to earth and press three.

“Can I help you?” asks the customer service advisor.

I explain the unexplainable. I have a random bill for import duty. The sound of air being sucked through the customer service advisor’s teeth is so loud that even my colleague sitting at the next desk looks round.

It is not random, says the male voice at the end of the phone. It’s because I ordered some mugs from a website a couple of months ago. An American website.

And his employer, the courier company, has had to pay the duty on it. This is why they are getting shirty.

He says all this in a voice that is laden with all the vitriol for anyone as stupid as me who would imagine that such a purchase could be free of any such tax.

I interject occasionally, but he’s having none of it. Never mind that I didn’t realise it was an American site. No matter that I was unaware that by ordering four mugs I would be entering into a contract with Her Majesty’s tax collectors. And absolutely no matter that when I unpacked the mugs, two were broken.

His derision drips through every word. He only just stops short of calling me a stupid old bat.

This is such an antithesis to any sort of customer service that I’m stopped in my tracks. It’s really, really poor. And then I realise that I actually quite admire him.

There’s nothing more frustrating than someone in a call centre indicating that you’re a valued customer, and that all calls are being recorded to improve their brilliant training even further, when after a couple of minutes of interrogation of the first line of your address, postcode, mother’s maiden name and your secret question (name of first pet, madam? Sorry, that’s not what I’ve got down here) you’re told that computer says no. That’s when call centre rage really starts.

But with a bloke like this, who indicates that if you’re too thick to understand import duty legislation you shouldn’t be allowed on the internet anyway, you know where you stand.

He hates his job. He hates his customers. What’s not to like?

I love the way he sighs deeply when I cave in early and offer to give him my credit card number.