DSS: Original Gardeners.

It's odd enough just working on a military base, even if I'm still a civilian, employed by the federal government (which has an oddness all its own, of course). Today, though, I found out that my department was once called the DSS - Defense Scientific Service - and that it actually was a branch of the military. Land, Sea, Air, and Science. Neat idea, isn't it?

Of course, those days are long gone, but there's still one little holdover. You see, the military has always loved org charts, and the idea of having an entire branch that couldn't be lined up in order of importance was anathema to them. So, they created a list of "equivalent ranks", which essentially told the soldiers which civilians they had to grudgingly respect and which they could happily ignore.

Nowadays, the list isn't used for a single thing, but it's still there, and to my incalculable amusement, I discovered that my position has the equivalent rank of "Captain".

I shall repeat this for the sake of my own ego: The list isn't used for a single thing. It is obsolete. I am not a Captain.

But that still doesn't change the fact that I couldn't stop grinning all day.