Bleh. I'll use up a spare account.

hunter-gatherer sounds about right on the money.

I've previously held a TS SCI clearance within an organization. I wasn't an S-2 guy, but worked with them and troubleshot stuff in the SCIF from time-to-time. I did some auditing in well-known buildings, blah blah blah.

Basically, the more secretive things get, the more bureaucratic and tedious they get. The more impossibly hard it is to do literally anything without at least 5 or 6 meetings to discuss the poteintal outcomes and risks therein. I suppose when you get to the kinds of things POTUS wants done right now, it could get weird? I don't know, never been in that position. But the amount of oversight and auditing that gets done by people that refuse to do anything that could risk their retirement? It is excessive. At more than a few points I found myself "preparing for the pre-inspection, inspection." That inspection, which would happen however often, was essentially always happening. You were either "learning from the last one" or you were "cleaning up for the next one". Just absolutely soul crushing.

I should also mention, even though some of the words I used above might sound interesting, it really comes down to carpeting. Carpeting sucks everywhere in the government. They can spend tons of cash on stupid meeting room tables for conference calls or whatever, but the thing you walk and stand on is just absolutely awful. Except in an executive officers office. The office that goes completely unused because they're out doing...whatever it is they do. Golf? Lunch? Who knows. Once you notice the little things like that, or light fixtures just looking like trash, you realize that all of the magical ideas people have about the big scary government is just kind of...quaint. Like things can be important or sensitive or whatever, but it's just not the way people imagine it being. It's too bogged down in the mud to be what people think it is.

Getting basic things like light fixtures changed out becomes a major hassle because, if it requires a dude on a ladder, now that dude on a ladder also has to have a clearance, and the room has to be sanitized. Don't forget to turn on the red light, so no one forgets that there is a guy up on that ladder! Getting one bulb changed can interrupt your work for at least an hour or two. It's insane.

Like, we had one cleaning lady. For a building of...a lot of people. Everyone loved her and treated her great. Do you know why that was? (Well, she was totally awesome and nice. But besides that.) It was because if she quit, there would be no one to replace her. That would mean every desk jockey in the building would be lugging their trash to the locked dumpster halfway across the parking lot in the hot sun. Then have to go through all of the fun stuff that goes with getting through the front door. They treated her like royalty!

Right before I left, they did actually get some young guy in there. If I had to guess, they went with him because they were hoping he would stick around for at least two to three decades.