I have a variant on Hanlon's Razor that I find particularly appropriate when dealing with telephone companies, utility companies, government bureaucracies, etc.

I have a variant on Hanlon's Razor that I find particularly appropriate when dealing with telephone companies, utility companies, government bureaucracies, etc.: Never attribute to benevolence what can be explained by incompetence. Conveniently, this principle also gives the same answer to the question of why McGraw said what he did.