Job satisfaction and security clearances

[Tim May]

At 5:54 PM -0400 7/24/01, Faustine wrote:
>Tim wrote:
>
>>Likewise, I know of even some Cypherpunks who have left their
>>employers for ideological reasons. And if some have _left_ jobs, the
>>effects are likely greater on the _recruiting_ side (where the costs
>>of a decision are much less).
>
>Absolutely. More than that, I try to never take a job unless I'd be willing
>to do it for free. All free-market principles aside, if you're just in it
>for the paycheck, what's the point? I'd rather do something I love that's
>meaningful to me than just make a pile. Even better not to have to choose
>at all. (Not there yet, so #1 it is...)

I liked, even greatly liked, some aspects of my job in the 70s and 
80s, but there is no way I would have done it for "free." I was 
getting up at the crack of dawn, arriving by 8 or earlier every 
morning, working more or less continuously until 6 each night, often 
working on Saturdays, sometimes working on Sundays, to do what my 
bosses told me needed doing. While I could often innovate, the broad 
outlines of my "interests" were set by management.

I believe this is mostly the case in 99% of all work environments, 
even ones "loved" by the workers. Very few jobs are of the form "Do 
what turns you on." What most people think of as "loving" the job is 
really just the result of adapting their own goals to that of the 
organization. It works for dogs, who also "love" their jobs, so why 
not for humans?

And working "for free," when the employer is deriving value 
(presumably), is a losing proposition for multiple reasons.

>This won't be too interesting to all the venerable greybeards out there,
>but you'd be surprised what kind of work you can end up with by taking an
>unpaid volunteer internship first. If there aren't any available, find
>someone to talk to, create a work plan and propose one yourself.

Only a nitwit works for free.


>  If you can
>scrape by, trading your free labor for experience isn't always a bad
>bargain...it's worked for me more than once, and I sometimes I eventually
>ended up on the payroll.

News flash: some of us were on the payroll from Day One. I have never 
worked a minute of "free labor," not counting helping friends move 
their stuff, and not counting the thousands, nay, tens of thousands, 
of hours I have spend on lists like this one.


>Has anyone ever been in the position of turning down work because you
>didn't want to apply for clearance? I seem to remember some people here
>saying they already have it, was it a hard decision for you? I don't really
>have a problem with the idea of facing a background check (though I don't
>imagine anyone looks forward to it), it's the pre-publication review board
>requirement that bothers me.

If I had little history, I'd have no problem applying for a "clearance."

Even now, if they wanted me to apply to apply for a clearance, I'd 
say "Yeah, right, whatever. Hand me the forms!" and then let the 
surprise be theirs.

Would I let them in my house to look around? Of course not. Could 
they ask questions of my neighbors? Whatever, as I have no control 
over my neighbors (except to tell them absolutely nothing about my 
life).

Could they check my Internet past? Presumably. Which is why I'd laugh 
if they said they wanted me to get a security clearance.

(I've been in meetings on topics I _discovered_ where I was excluded 
from part of the meeting. In Washington in 1979, for example, where I 
outlined to DARPA, NRL, CIA, and NRO a system for knocking out 
satellites with particle beam weapons. I gave the kickoff talk, 
outlined the set of calculations, but was excluded from the afternoon 
classified sessions. No skin off my nose.)

--Tim May

-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns