Quote:Thanks for helping me prove my point though.
One major point I have learned from this thread (combined with my own negative experiences with the IC) is that one's talents, skills, interests, and desire to work for the IC run a very far, far second to one's ability to play the polygraph and BI games, when it comes to employment within the IC.
The polygraph is, of course, modern day alchemy and the BI is essentially a popularity contest.
At the time of my applications to the IC, I had a perfect credit history, a clear police record, and a "satisfactory" residential and lifestyle history. All that merely made it necessary for the BI's to have to dig deeper for dirt, until they finally were able to come upon some, in the form of a few jerks at a place where I worked part time when I was in college (known as "developed informants" in FBI-speak).
On another occasion, CIA recruiters informed me that because of my knowledge and skills, I was virtually assured of an "offer of employment" from the Agency. This contact came as the result of my being approached by someone at the Agency, NOT the other way around. Unfortunately, as I learned the hard way, the recruiters are wholly out of the loop of the Office of Security, and have no input into its processes. The Offices of Security of the IC agencies are the last redoubt and deep cave for the troglodytic "quickfixes" of the IC.
Those applicants best able to worm their way through the polygraph and BI tend to be chameleons and sociopaths, selected because of their ability to be deceptive and to be "all things to all people". Since one's qualifications, skills, and aptitude apparently play virtually NO role whatever in the personnel selection decisions of the IC agencies' Offices of Security" , it is small wonder that IC personnel are so mediocre and that the IC is a perfect incubator for the mental development of specimens like a "quickfix"!.
In the case of the CIA, its successful applicants appear to be college grads with otherwise unemployable majors, who have lucked their way through the BI popularity contest and the polygraph, and who have thus been hired based primarily upon luck and chameleonship, rather than occupational qualifications!
I wish to thank the various participants in this thread. More than most of the other posts on this site, the present prolonged thread has provided me with ample clarification and insight as to the attitudes of those who in fact control the keys of access into the IC.