It wouldn't surprise me if the OP's issue with "we don't do standby" may have been a result of an agent who just didn't want to deal with it along with whatever else was going on at the moment. Of course I wasn't there to observe and judge, but the human factor seems a common variable when it comes to episodes like these. Plenty of episodes over the years (on several airlines) where it took being-nice-but-firm to have an agent fulfill a request they initially wanted to brush aside.