I worked as a summer seasonal in a national park in the Pacific Northwest where the new superintendent was sent as a part of the NPS contribution to the Peter Principal--as part of a RIF at the Seattle office he was transferred laterally beyond his ability to function (and he'd been pretty low-level functioning before, as the region "uniform officer," making sure they are contracted, ordered, worn properly, etc.). Not superintendent material, and when he arrived he acted like he'd arrived at his own private fiefdom. I think "ignorant" or "pompous" are the best descriptions for most of his actions. He would walk around the park with open containers, regularly borrow park equipment and have the staff do work at his house (he didn't live in government housing).

One day he arrived in the office with a large pressure bandage on his index finger. These are used to hold broken bones in place and to stop bleeding. Seeing his bandage I asked if he'd cut it or broken it. "Both," he said. So I offered a quip, thinking of the remotest, dumbest, and (I thought) least likely thing he could possibly have done. "What did you do, stick it in a running lawnmower?"

"Yes."

Geez. I left it there. But a few weeks later I heard he was hospitalized and was very ill. He was back a couple of weeks later and I asked how he was and why he'd been so sick. Seems he decided to eat some raw oysters. They'd been in his fridge for a week.

Stupid. There's no other explanation for it. The man has lived on Puget Sound for decades and he doesn't understand about fresh seafood?

I learned later that the high density of idiot permanent employees was due to the fact that this was the last stand for the employees who were complete goof-ups who couldn't easily be fired. They were sent out to this island "retirement park" until they finally got the message and retired. Too bad for the park, because it was a beautiful place but it was run incompetently. I left as early as I could without affecting my evaluation, but it turned out to not matter--I worked for a pathological liar (I learned about his lies about staff from some state park rangers who ran into him in a bar one night--amazing stuff, but the state park guys had known me for years and knew he was fabricating this stuff) who wrote the most creative and amazingly smearing evaluation that I spent my last day sitting at a park table documenting the problems in the park as my rebuttal.

There should have been an asterisk by this park in the list of places with job openings for seasonals. Working there was cruel and unusual punishment.

SRS