Res Agent shenanigans
 

I'm taking the family to Bozeman this summer — booked two tickets with cash and two tickets using my Amex companion pass. We booked slightly less than optimal schedules, because it saved us almost $300 combined.

This morning, we got an almost-two-hour schedule change so I was looking forward to using the schedule change to get on the flights I'd wanted from the beginning. And I was doubly motivated because taking a 3-year-old and 6-month-old on an 8 p.m. flight didn't strike me as fun (it had moved from a 5:45 departure to a 7:40 departure).

Called in, and the first agent tried to tell me I was not eligible for a new flight unless the change was more than four hours. I pressed very gently ("I thought it was just one hour?") — and was firmly rebuffed. Fine. I know how this is going to go. ("Well, I guess I was mistaken. Thanks so much for your help. Click.")

Call back five minutes later and get a lovely agent who processes my request within 5 minutes.

I know I'm not the first, and won't be the last, FTer to encounter incompetent airline reservation agents, but I still don't know how it happens. How do these airlines tolerate it?

Because the majority of the changes these agents deal with are likely simple and can be done following a simple web app that was probably available to the customer calling in. From the airline's perspective, the particular agent is likely still meeting productivity goals and doing most of their work correctly. They can hire people off the street with no specialized education, who may or may not have finished high school, to process the majority of their changes and it is cheaper for them to do so. Occasionally they will need to do something more advanced (but still relatively simple) such as your situation. Ideally they should be trained appropriately to deal with situations like yours, but you can only teach so much to some of their employees, that is especially "low-yield" in the grand scheme of things. If it is really an issue the customer wants resolved, then it will usually get taken care of due to HUCA.
Is it annoying and inconvenient that you don't have the same level of service from every agent? Yup.
Is it going to change? Nope, because to ensure high quality agents for every interaction would require paying them more to acquire & retain talent which is not necessary for the majority of customer interactions.

In any case, this is excellent handling of the situation. Much stress and frustration could be prevented if more people followed this simple process.

They tolerate it because you hung up. Let the agent hang up and give them a "1". Delta will notice that, and maybe play back the call. The agent will get educated.

"shenanigans" implies something underhanded was going on, this was likely just incompetence

This is a case where I would have asked for a Supervisor because OP was clearly in the right and there was no grey area. It also is nice educating that agent to then lift DL's communal agent standards.

I HUCA if there is a grey area...like the former SDCs from F to domestic D1...but this would have been resolved with either referencing the CoC to Agent #1 or asking for Supervisor or Reissue Desk.

Giving the dumb agent a 1 also helps because they shouldn't be so uneducated.

Changing to an earlier flight is "more advanced"?

If it is any consolation the agents on the UA call system have the same issues, politely finish the call and call back in 5 minutes. You did what you should have.

Probably the first agent didn't want to bother with having to reissue 4 tickets due to the schedule change so they made up a 'rule'... unfortunately this does happen occasionally.

Yeah, best thing to do here is let the agent hang up and then give them a 1. Only way DL will know that the agent is incompetent.

Were the new flights earlier on the same day, or on a different day (next morning, for example)?