I: Tales of Temporary employment - 3

During 1986 I found myself with a gap between jobs - I'd left my
teaching job and my new appointment didn't start for a few months.
Through an agency I decided to try a stint on a government project
called Community Rural Aid. Its main activity was to go round cleaning
up the countryside wherever needed, providing work for the young
unemployed in the process. My job was to drive the workers to wherever
they were needed, and to help out in the office.

The boss of the project for our area was a middle aged woman who seemed
to have been to the same finishing school as Margaret Thatcher. She
ruled with an iron rod, but in addition she seemed to be on her own
crusade against men, I could only speculate on the reason. Employment
politics at the time was very much concerned with confronting sexist
male bosses, so it was more than a little strange to encounter the
situation in reverse.

By the time I started, she'd already reduced the wages manager to a
quivering wreck. Not long after he went sick with a nervous breakdown -
I never saw him again. His replacement was also male and I saw her get
to work almost immediately on her new prey. She'd constantly undermine
his authority, talk about him in disparaging terms while he was at
lunch and if he was ever even a minute late all hell would break loose
in front of the other staff. The rest of her immediate staff were
female, and were plainly treated totally differently and fairly. I
decided to try to keep out of her way - fortunately I spent quite a lot
of time out of the office.

She always walked to work with her dog, a young Labrador called Bobby.
One morning I was oiling and watering the van when she suddenly loomed
over the open bonnet. She was very short and sharp. "Eleven this
morning, I want you to drive me to the vets." Before I had time even to
acknowledge her she'd walked off. I waited with trepidation for eleven
to arrive, wondering what sort of passenger she was going to
make.

To my surprise she was silent for the whole journey. When we arrived
she told me to wait and disappeared into the surgery. About an hour
later she re-emerged with a very woozy looking patient and carefully
lifted him back into the van. She then got into the passenger seat and
just sat there. She looked terrible. I felt like I had to say
something. "Is Bobby very ill?" I asked. She looked at me for a second
then replied "I've just had him castrated." Then she burst into tears
and sobbed, "And if you tell a living soul about this I'll do the same
to you!" From then on we kept out of each other's way.