Once is an accident. Twice is incompetence. Thrice is intentional. What was described in the story is just pure malice. They cut three more lines as the guy

Once is an accident. Twice is incompetence. Thrice is intentional. What was described in the story is just pure malice. They cut three more lines as the guy was on the phone trying to complain to Comcast about the first cut. Comcast was given a map, and from the story, it looks like they used it to pre-plan the willful destruction of someone else's business and livelihood. If there was a lack of training, it was a dearth of ethics classes. If there was a lack of competence, it was in devising plausible excuses for the cuts.