AccountingWEB welcomes mysterious HMRC advisor

Calling any HMRC office is a hazardous business BUT we should all remember that the caller before us may have been abusive, rude, off-hand or [insert as appropriate]. It's hard to come back from that sufficinetly quickly to take the next call in the right frame of mind.
Treat someone like a human and they will, hopefully, respond in the same vein. What the officials can't do is say, "yes, I know my employer is absolutely - - - - at telling you what's going on, and they don't tell us either" because calls "may be monitored for training purposes". "Training purposes" is, in my humble opinion, a euphemism for "keeping an ear on what the staff are saying".

You scared him off. He deleted his original post.

(in David Attenborough tones);

"See how aggresive the lesser spotted call centre employee can be (Lat: Revenuis Laccium), creating much mayhem amonst his species before retreating to the undergrowth/nearest pub".