Someone I was talking to just said they gave me a boiler plate response. What does that mean?
It means a response that wasn't tailored to your specific situation; they just pulled one off the shelf. It's the same response that they give to everybody, regardless of their specific question.
Boiler plate is the journalistic way of saying, a prepared statement, rather than an honest answer to a qusetion. So your friend has asked a question and been 'given the company line' or treated to some good oldfashioned boilerplate, rather than getting a genuine response.
