Customer Demands All His Rental Properties Lose Service Immediately – So the Rep Does Exactly That

In customer service, the line between reasonable frustration and self-sabotage can be surprisingly thin. The following story – shared by a former support worker for a cable, internet, and home-phone company – captures what happens when impatience overrides communication.

It’s not unusual for people to call their service providers in a state of irritation; in fact, a 2023 Consumer Reports survey found that 67% of customers become frustrated before even reaching a human representative, and 1 in 4 callers admit they start the conversation angry.

But as experts in conflict communication often point out, the angrier a caller begins, the more likely the outcome will be shaped by emotion rather than problem-solving.

In this case, one landlord’s refusal to let a support agent investigate an issue triggered a cascade of unintended consequences – not just for him, but for every tenant living in his three rental properties.

Here’s The Original Story:

Five years ago, the OP worked in a position many customer-service veterans will recognize: a “proxy supervisor.” Companies often run this system so real supervisors don’t spend their entire shift absorbing customer anger, which is more common than people think.

According to a 2022 Harvard Business Review piece, frontline support staff encounter “elevated or aggressive callers” up to 10 times per shift in certain industries.

One night, a frontline agent transferred a call to OP. The caller, whom the story names “Kyle”, owned three rental properties with cable, home phone, and internet service. He believed he had previously been promised free long-distance calling on all accounts.

OP did what any trained staff member would do: politely asked to review the account notes to see what happened. But Kyle refused to let him check anything. Instead, he began escalating immediately, insisting, loudly, that OP cancel every service at every property.

OP attempted more than once to explain that reviewing the notes was necessary. Kyle refused. He demanded immediate cancellation. And so, following company policy, OP switched into a mode known unofficially as “malicious compliance”: honoring the customer’s explicit (if unwise) instructions.

Before doing anything, OP verified that Kyle was authorized to terminate service on all three accounts. Once confirmed, he clarified one last time:

Did Kyle want to cancel all cable, all internet, and all phone lines at all three properties, effective immediately?

Kyle responded with a string of profanity and an unambiguous yes.

It was almost midnight on a Friday, prime time for tenants streaming shows, calling friends, or browsing online. But OP executed the cancellation exactly as requested.

When a service agent terminates an account “immediately,” the system doesn’t wait until the billing cycle ends or until morning.

Everything shuts off in real time. TV screens go black. Internet routers lose signal. Phone lines stop functioning, except for emergency calls.

The next shift, OP checked the accounts and found notes left by multiple agents: tenants from all three properties had called in, confused and frustrated, reporting full service outages.

A senior supervisor reviewed the recording and documented that OP had followed instructions correctly. In other words: the call went exactly the way Kyle demanded.

Ironically, research shows that 90% of customer-service conflicts escalate not because of the issue itself, but because of how communication breaks down. This situation played out like a near-perfect example.

Had Kyle given OP thirty seconds to review the notes, the issue might have been solved – or at least explained, without shutting down the nightly lives of three households.

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

Stories like this strike a familiar chord with readers because nearly everyone has been on both sides of the customer-service relationship: sometimes frustrated callers, sometimes people at the mercy of a system that doesn’t move as fast as we want. 

Many commenters responded with humor, others with empathy, and some with reminders about the stress baked into the modern support environment. Here’s what people had to say:

In the end, the humor in this story comes from the contrast between intention and outcome. Kyle wanted fast results; instead, he ended up fielding late-night calls from three sets of angry tenants.

His impatience created a larger problem than the one he started with, and the employee simply followed clear, repeated instructions.

Communication experts often emphasize the same lesson: take a breath, ask a question, and let the person helping you do their job.

Customer service can be frustrating on both ends, but as this story shows, clarity and calm go a long way. And sometimes, the most dramatic outcomes come not from conflict, but from refusing to slow down long enough to avoid one.