Desert Chronicles:
One of the oddest women i ever met recently retired from the forest service.
Backsground: She had been rocketed to a line officer position during the 80's due to a court decision that said not enough women were in leadership roles, so to avoid jail for the highest levels of management, any women in the forest service at that time were accellerated in their careers instantly, which led to almost universal Peter Principle situations. Some landed on their feet and did fine, but many didn't.
Sue had already been the recipient of several disciplinary promotions, that is, transferred to a promotion somewhere else to get her out of the job she happened to be mucking up at the time.
She became a district ranger, independent of her lack of any discernible abilities, and she wasted no time in demonstrating that fact. On her second day of work in her new job, she went to visit a grazing permittee, at his house. She had her constant companion with her, Cal the Weiner Dog, as she had no children (partially because no one would breed her). Anyway, the irate rancher, who disliked the forest service anyway, opened his door to her to discuss the problem about some cows having gotten out and hammering a meadow. Ol' Cal shot past her, into the house, and proceeded to kill the rancher's wife's prize housecat, and then took out their chihuahua just for good measure. Sue didn't make a move to stop him until the deed was done, then she starting swearing profusely and said she had to leave to have Cal checked out by a vet in case he had been injured. Politeness counts among ranch folk, and she started off badly.
Cal the Weiner Dog's fame spread. One day, at a large meeting that included the Regional Forester and his entourage, and the general movers and shakers of the outfit, Sue brought Cal, which was a bit innappropriate as folks are sort of expected to leave their dogs home during work, particularly at formal meetings. Well, while the Regional Forester was waxing poetic about something or other, Cal jumped up into Sue's lap. She started to scratch, stroke, and generally caress Cal's nuts very passionately.
The regional forester paused and asked her what hell she was doing, as it was beyond normal levels of odd. Without batting an eyelash, Sue replied, "He likes it, why WOULDN'T i do it?"
Sue had some sort of syndrome which included jerky body movements and nervous tics that would scare combat veterans. At many staff meetings, she would eat styrofoam coffee cups, and i mean the whole thing. Her legs kicked out at odd angles at random moments, so if she was being coy, she would sit on her legs sometimes, and rock back and forth rhythmically for the whole meeting. And she was in charge of the meetings, as she was the boss.
One day, one of the planners was passing by her ranger station on the way to Redding, and he noticed Sue walking around in the parking lot, arms extended straight out in front of her, clapping rhythmically as she walked slow figure-8's.
He hit the brakes, backed up, and went into the office to ask if they knew what sue was doing. Without even looking up, the sale prep forester said, "oh, she's just having a clap attack" as if it was totally normal, which it turned out to be for her, it calmed her enough to think clearly for brief bursts.
Anyway, i think she had tourette's syndrome, among others, but no one told me that as she was my first supervisor when i moved to the Modoc. As she took me around to introduce me to people, they all made faces and stuff at her and i was totally confused as to what the joke was that i didn't get. I never did get it.
