January 25, 2025 at 7:49 pm

Rude Customer Complains That His Trash Wasn’t Picked Up, So The Customer Service Rep Decides Not To Tell Him How He Could Save Money On Garbage Collection

by Jayne Elliott

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance/Shutterstock

When you work in a customer service job, you sometimes have to deal with unreasonable customers who insist that they’re right even when they’re clearly wrong.

In today’s story, the customer is wrong about the garbage pickup schedule, and he’s so annoying that the customer service rep makes a decision that costs him a lot of money.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

You don’t want to talk trash? Fine by me

So some backstory: I (25f) spent my summer working at the garbage disposal unit in my city, where I take calls about garbage pick ups, new memberships, complaints etc.

A pretty chill and surprisingly fun job.

Part of why I thought it was fun (and this is important for later) was that the garbage disposal in my city is not for profit.

Meaning that I didn’t have to upsell the customers calling, if they could meet their needs by using a smaller bin/pay less, I could help them change to that.

I was also free to call customers back, if I found a better solution for them after the call had ended. I did this a few times and the customers were always happy that I called back and offered them a better deal.

Win for them, win for me, since I made somebody’s day.

One customer was pretty upset.

One day I get the following call:

Me: Welcome to Garbage Disposal Unit, how can I help?

Customer (clearly irate): Hi, you didn’t empty my bin yesterday.

Now this is nothing too unusual, it was summer and the substitute drivers sometimes missed a bin or two.

Usually I would just send them back, no harm done.

So I ask the guy for the address and check out the pick up history.

Here’s how calls like this usually go.

Me: Oh I see that we emptied your bin last week, so you weren’t on the schedule to have it emptied yesterday. We’ll come again next week.

In my city, the options for garbage collection is either every second week, or every fourth week.

It was not unusual for people to mix up the weeks and call me, so I would just tell them, they would laugh and say “silly me” and that was that.

Not. This. Guy.

This guy didn’t laugh it off.

Customer: Yeah I know you picked it up last week. But you didn’t pick it up THIS week.

Me: well, no, we only collect every second week. So we collected last week, and we’ll come by again next week.

Customer: No. You collect EVERY week, but you didn’t collect it this week.

Me: No sir, we don’t have collection every week, we have never collected garbage every week.

The customer wouldn’t listen to reason.

Customer: I pay you to collect my garbage every week! What am I supposed to do with my garbage if you dont come collect it every week?! I can’t last two weeks!

(Mind you, he obviously had up until this moment, because, once again, we have NEVER collected garbage every week)

Me: Well you could try recycling, or sort out your food waste, or you could switch out for a bigger bin?

Customer: I already recycle everything I can recycle, I have my own compost so I don’t even throw my food in the bin, I just have A LOT of garbage! And I need you to come pick it up, because I pay you to do that every week!

The customer finally hung up.

Me: well-

The customer interrupts me: You know what? I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

And without me saying another word, he hangs up.

As I was processing his call, something he said clicked in my head.

She couldn’t helped him save money.

In the city where I live, you pay an extra amount for throwing food in the regular trash, which the customer was paying for.

This guy had said that he had his own compost, which merited him a lower garbage fee of about 70 euros/year.

Remember, I was free to call him back and tell him the happy news.

Had he been any other customer, I would have.

But he didn’t want to talk about trash with me, so who am I to disobey him?

70 euros might not be a lot, but I get immense satisfaction thinking about this guy literally putting it in the trash.

Which is still getting picked up every second week. As it always has.

The customer will probably never find out he could be saving money.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is a funny idea!

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

This sounds quite logical.

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

Free garbage pickup sounds great!

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

The customer should’ve listened.

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

Don’t annoy your garbage collection people!

This should be a no-brainer.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.