What constitutes creepiness?

I needed to change a train reservation, and since you can't do that on the Amtrak website, you need to call their 800 number. When you do that, you get Julie, the automated agent. She asks you some questions to either do what you need done or shuffle you off to someone who's more of a human being and can do a somewhat larger variety of things. I have a friend who really likes to scream at the automated agents as if they're furious at them, or speak with a totally sarcastic tone or whatever, depending on her mood. I just try to get through as quickly as I can.

This time, the agent tells me that she lives in the same town as me, actually the neighboring town. This is an unusually familiar thing for a phone agent to say, but what she said next was even odder. She said she knew where I lived because she used to work at UPS and had delivered packages to my house. This seemed ever so slightly creepy to me. I often enjoy goofing around with phone reps, because I know their job is boring and repetitive and everyone deserves to have a a little fun in their day. But usually these people are bound and determined (and often required by work rules) to keep themselves completely anonymous. This seemed just a tad inappropriate.

It got me thinking about how different commerce is now. Not that long ago, you knew almost everyone you bought stuff from. It was one of the nice things about being from a place as opposed to being transient. In my local dealings, I still know almost everyone I interact with and I like it that way. I go out of my way to add a little bit of real conversation to every interaction, whether I know the person or not, because I think it's a nice thing to do and it makes people feel good. Now we do most of our business in a completely impersonal way- big stores, phone, online, and we expect and want it to be impersonal. As someone pointed out to me, this is at least partly because they know who you are, have your address and credit card number, and you don't have a clue who they are.

I guess I don't care whether my shopping is personal or impersonal, but I think the comfort level comes from there being some apparent symmetry to the relationship. It can't be personal on one side and impersonal on the other. It violates some form of social contract to interact as equals, whether that means as numbers or as people. It also reinforces the notion that there are people out there who know stuff about you. And yeah, I find that a bit creepy.