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Getting mistaken for the boss is usually a compliment. Getting mistaken for the boss by someone’s furious, soon-to-be ex-wife who wants you to enforce a custody dispute is a completely different situation.

One airman, only a few days into a new posting, found himself on the receiving end of that exact situation when the shop phone rang and a woman demanded he order his boss to let her back into their shared house.

So when he calmly corrected her about the rank situation, she didn’t take it well and resorted to cursing him out before he hung up without hesitation.

She called back twice more, cursing each time, and got hung up on each time in return.

When she finally called a fourth time with a noticeably quieter tone, she got a masterclass in military bluntness she clearly wasn’t expecting.

Keep reading for the full story.

Boss and his wife were going through a divorce, she wanted me to order him to do her bidding.

I was in the Air Force, and had been recently promoted, and then transferred to a small electronics maintenance shop in California.

The shop boss (a scatterbrained and somewhat spineless guy) thought that I was going to be the new boss until we figured out that he outranked me by “time in grade” — we were the same rank, but he held his rank a year earlier than did I. So he was the boss.

But that wasn’t even the messiest part.

He was also going through a very messy divorce. He caught his wife cheating on him and was heartbroken and bewildered, but his civilian wife had become extremely vicious and was trying to get him in trouble.

Her boyfriend was a military cop (MP), and she tried using that against my boss until the military caught on and put a stop to it.

Soon, this employee found himself tied up in someone else’s drama.

So I had only been there for a couple of days, and was alone in the shop doing paperwork when the shop phone rang.

“Bla Squadron, Staff Sergeant Calladus, this line may be unsecured, how can I help you?”

The woman on the other line was clearly confused.

“Oh, you’re the new NCOIC (shop boss for the civilian folks). Jim (Staff Sergeant Bewildered) told me you are going to be in charge! I need you to make him do something for me.”

He immediately tried to correct her, but she wasn’t listening.

“Sorry, no, Staff Sergeant Bewildered is still the shop boss. He outranks…”

“No, he doesn’t. Why are you covering for him?”

“We just figured it out yesterday ma’am, he out…”

It soon became clear this woman was up to no good.

“NO! YOU are his boss,” she yelled. “And YOU need to tell him to let me the heck into our house!”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but he’s my boss, and I won’t get involved in his private life.”

“You’re an AH and you’re lying for…” CLICK.

I’d hung up the phone.

The saga continued.

The phone rang.

“Bla Squadron, Staff Sergeant Calladus, this line may be unsecured, how…”

“YOU JERK, WHY THE *****..”

CLICK. I hung up the phone again.

She wasn’t giving up that easily.

The phone rang.

“Bla Squadron, Staff Sergeant…”

“GOD **** YOU…”

CLICK. I had hung up the phone again.

There was a noticeable pause.

She was a persistent woman.

The phone rang.

“Bla Squadron, Staff Sergeant Calladus, this line may be unsecured, how can I help you?”

Her very quiet, and somewhat contrite voice said, “Why do you keep hanging up on me?”

So he tries once again to set her straight.

“Ma’am, this is a military phone line for military business. I’m not required to listen to an abusive civilian who has nothing to do with my job. So any cursing will immediately end this phone call. Speaking to me is your privilege, not your right.”

She started to say something, but I just bulldozed over her.

He made sure to really hammer home his point.

“Ma’am, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but you’ve accused me of being a liar to protect your husband from you.

Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other. What is true is that he DOES outrank me by a year in grade, and will remain the shop boss unless something changes.”

So he proves her wrong once again.

“You are not in my chain of command, ma’am, so even if I did outrank your husband, I would not order him to do anything for you because that would be unlawful and unethical.”

“I don’t give a care about what is going on between the two of you, and since I’m not anyone’s friend here I won’t lift a finger to help either of you solve your personal problems. As long as his personal life doesn’t get in the way of his Air Force duties, or break the laws of the UCMJ, then I. Just. Don’t. Care.”

“Now get off my phone. I have work to do.”

And I hung up again.

The woman continued to meddle, but at least she knew better than to mess with him.

She spent the next year trying to mess up his life, and almost succeeded, but a judge saw through the crap and awarded him full custody of their children, with supervised visits only by her. He wasn’t a great leader, but he was adequate. And she was such a jerk!

And she never said more than a sentence or two to me for the rest of my time at that assignment.

What did Reddit make of this situation?

This user congratulates this employee on standing on business.

The employee’s strong words struck a chord with this fellow customer service worker.

This commenter doesn’t think this situation could have been handled any better.

Three hang-ups is an unusually effective teaching method, and somehow it worked better than any amount of polite explanation ever could have.

This ex-wife spent three phone calls testing whether cursing at a stranger would get her what she wanted, and three times the answer came back as a dial tone.

By the fourth call, the volume dropped and the tone shifted, proving that consistency, not persuasion, was always going to be the thing that actually got through to her.

Staying out of other people’s messes has never sounded so satisfying.