Many
friends wonder, what with my strange beliefs about intelligence and
national defense, that I am not working for that center of evil
itself, the NSA. Why not go to work for the great oppressor of
freedom that even now examines each individuals internet pornography
use and deduces whether or not they are having kinky sex with women in order to inform the local Gestapo and have
them beat in the doors to seize the miscreant and hang them in their
cell?
But it is not out of a misguided sense of privacy rights that I am not working for the NSA. The real reason is that I could not figure out how to apply.
Applying for the NSA requires
applying through the Internet, a bold new paradigm. Just applying
for the NSA through the Internet requires hours of your time, and
requires a reasonable understanding of our nation's civil service
structure. And the NSA internal job classifications.
The
potential candidate for national security work is presented with a
series of questions that to those of us filled with patriotism but
outside the beltway will find completely baffling. What job
classification was your dog when your dog applied for TS clearance?
What job classification was your mother-in-law when she was denied
SCI tickets? Did you or did you not visit NMIC in the basement of
the pentagon when you were 23 years old with Dr. Stockton Gaines?
What did you hope to gain from that stunt for your communist masters?
And
then, forget about uploading a resume. Resumes are old fashioned
here, son, put your old fashioned ideas away and get ready for some
rocket science. Instead you must type in your resume and experience
and education in carefully prepared html forms. What was the name of
your 6th grade Science teacher? If we contacted Mrs.
Winkler, as you allege, what would she say about you and your
commitment to the American Way? When you heard about the
assassination of Kennedy, were you (a) happy, (b) distressed, (c)
thinking only about the cute girl two rows up and to the left?
And
on and on it goes, from Elementary School, to Middle School, to High
School, to college. What was your grade in differential equations?
Why did you have to take it over? What does your failure to excel
at diff eq say about your lack of ethical standards?
And
finally, when you think it is over, it isn't over.
Pick
your job classification? Slovenian linguist or Finno-Ugric
semiotics, junior grade? Sino-Soviet relations as manifested by
their choice of profanity or perhaps Korean synonyms? Its your
choice, boy, but choose carefully because forever is your destiny
affected.
And
then, if you think you finished but you did not get a reply, that
means you did not finish. Yes, you left some box unchecked, and
after those hours of work they did not actually get that application
which they would use to ignore you. You were never officially
ignored. You did not even get that far.
And
that is what happened.
I
went through this process, somehow missed some box to check, and did
not actually submit. Should I try again? What's the point? No one ever gets a job by applying through the Internet.
Maybe
this is a way to weed out the weak and find only those who are truly
worthy?
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