Now that I'm home again and don't have to type on my phone, I want to add two "funny" details to the above.

Firstly, the agent who was clearly bothered by me showing up at the counter and who waved me away to the desk with the Closed sign continued blabbing away with her colleague the whole time I was at the next desk. It's one thing to ask you to go to another counter if you're busy (and you can be busy even when talking to a colleague if it is something work-related and urgent), but to not want to assist a customer only because you're in the middle of some juicy gossiping is just awful.

Secondly, here's the the conversation between me and the other agent who kindly removed the Closed sign she had just placed on her counter:
– Hi, I made an award reservation last night, and it's waitlisted, but I didn't receive an email with the booking reference. Could you give me a printout of it?
– You don't get a confirmation if it's waitlisted.
– Yes, but what I do get is an email stating the flights and booking reference so I can check that the flights are correct and follow up online.
– [sighing, realising that I won't go away unless she do something, starting to type], Okay, well, do you have the booking reference?

In the end, she found it without the booking reference (of course; the first thing I did was produced my ID) and gave me the weirdest printout I've ever seen, clearly something meant for staff only, but I do have the booking reference now. ^

Janica up north may not be the most polished airline customer service representative out there, and sometimes she's not very knowledgeable, either, but at least she's consistently friendly. These ladies from HEL [sic] were not directly unfriendly, but I felt like I had to basically milk them to get anything out of them. And I took a friendly approach, as I usually do.