Almost\neveryone has had the experience of quitting a job. It\u2019s not that hard. You just go to your boss and say \u201cTake this\njob and \u2026 find someone who will better appreciate its benefits.\u201d But things are more complicated when that job\nis with the National Security Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I joined\nNSA at Fort Meade, MD as my first job out of college, and worked there for nine\nyears in the 80s and early 90s. (These\nwere the good old days of NSA, before they started spying on Americans.) I was very proud of my work there, making\nsemiconductor encryption chips. Like\nmost of the people there, I had the highest security clearance the government\noffered \u2013 Top Secret Special Intelligence. \nWe scoffed at those piddly Top Secret clearances that they gave away\nlike candy over at the CIA \u2013 this was the real deal. And when you agree to accept this clearance\nthere are certain freedoms you voluntarily give up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most\nobvious freedom I gave up was being able to talk about my work. I could only talk about work at work, and\noutside of work I would end up talking about the people at work, which is more\ninteresting anyway. But the strangest\nlifestyle difference was the inversion of what is private and what is\npublic. Work became private, and my\npersonal life could only remain private if it was boring. The security office at NSA worried about its\nemployees being blackmailed, so the skeletons in each of our closets were\nactively exhumed through regular security reviews and polygraph tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1988 an\norganization called SEMATECH was started up in Austin, Texas. For those of us working in chip\nmanufacturing, this was a big deal \u2013 a consortium of the largest US\nsemiconductor companies, Intel, IBM, Motorola, sending people and money to this\nnew research lab, with the Department of Defense contributing 50% of the\nbudget. It was the cutting edge of my\nprofession. So I thought, maybe I could\nget assigned to SEMATECH for a year or two to work with these great people\ndoing important research in the interest of US security. And moving from Baltimore to Austin for a\nwhile could be fun. Everyone at NSA\nagreed this would be a great idea, but there was one problem: it had never been done before. And the first rule of bureaucracy is \u201cIf it\u2019s\nnever been done before, it can\u2019t be done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bureaucrats\nhave a bad reputation, mostly undeserved since they are the people that\nactually get things done in government. \nAfter all, the other group of government employees is politicians, and\nwe know how much good they do. Government\nemployees operate under an important constraint that most people don\u2019t\nrealize. At your job, you have rules,\nand if you break those rules you get in trouble, unless breaking the rules\nmakes your company a lot of money, and then you get a pat on the back and a promotion. But in the government these rules go by a\ndifferent name: they\u2019re called\nlaws. You don\u2019t just break the rules,\nyou break the law. A guess what \u2013\ngovernment employees don\u2019t like breaking the law, so they work very, very hard\nto make sure everything they do follows the huge and continuously growing set\nof regulations that apply to almost everything they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was\nhard to figure out how to make the regulations work so that I could be temporarily\nassigned to SEMATECH, but I was determined, and I was a pretty good bureaucrat.\n Through a lot of careful study of\nregulations and a lot of advocacy from my boss and my boss\u2019s boss and my boss\u2019s\nboss\u2019s boss and a team of people from finance and legal at NSA, we created a\nplan and made it work. I left Maryland to come to Austin to work at\nSEMATECH. It was great! I did cool work with cool people, I wrote and\npublished papers and presented at conferences, and we made a real\ndifference. And when my 16 month assignment\nwas over, I decided I couldn\u2019t leave. I\nhad fallen in love with Austin. I had\nfound my home. So six weeks before I was\nsupposed to go back, I told my boss I was going to resign. Of course, she was disappointed, but she\nunderstood my decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my\nlast week of working for NSA, I flew back to Maryland and started the week-long\ndebriefing process. Quitting a job with\na TSSI clearance is a lengthy process. \nOn Monday and Tuesday it was meetings with my boss and group about\nprojects and hand-offs, cleaning out my desk, all the normal stuff. On Wednesday I got the library to sign off\nthat I had no overdue books. On Thursday\nI went to finance to finish up with my final paycheck and expense reports and\nto get their sign-off before the final security debriefing on Friday. And this is where things went horribly wrong. When I handed finance my exit form for their\nsignature, they said \u201cSorry, we can\u2019t sign this because our records show you\nowe us for an expense overpayment we made. \nOnce you write us a check for the overpayment we can sign your\nform.\u201d Well that\u2019s odd, I thought, but\nOK. \u201cHow much do I owe?\u201d \u201c$120,000.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What?!?!? $120,000? \nThat was more than two years of my salary!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\nmust have been a mistake. No, they\nassured me that they had been working on these calculations for over a week,\nall the numbers had been double checked and approved, and they had applied the\nrules pursuant to joint federal travel regulation \u00a7301-74.24 scrupulously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regulation\n301 what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\nexplained to me what this regulation meant. \nSuppose you are on a TDY (that\u2019s Temporary Duty, government speak for a\nbusiness trip) and you fail to meet your obligations of the TDY. For example, you are sent on a trip to attend\na conference but instead you go to the beach all week. The government can require reimbursement of\ntheir expenses in sending you on the trip, including your salary for the week. I was on an extended TDY, and the claim was\nthat my obligation for the 16 month trip was to bring everything I had learned\nat SEMATECH back to NSA for use there, and by not returning it was the same as\nif I had spent 16 months at the beach instead of working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew\nthis could not possibly be right, but I discovered that finance was just doing\nwhat they were told. My boss\u2019s boss, who\nhad gone to the mat two years before to figure out how to send me to SEMATECH,\nwas pissed! He had written a memo to\nfinance the week before invoking this regulation, and the bureaucratic wheels\nhad begun to spin. It didn\u2019t matter that\nI was being crushed under them. I tried\nto call him, my new nemesis, but he refused my calls. I went to his office but a security guard was\nstationed there to keep me out. That\nnight I was angry, but also determined. \nI would fight this, lawyer up if needed. \nI was obviously in the right, and I was not about to let some petty\npaper pusher ruin my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On\nFriday I went to my all-day security debriefing. At the end of the day I handed my exit form\nto the security officer for that final signature. \u201cI can\u2019t sign this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not signed by finance. They have to sign it first before I can\nsign.\u201d OK. But what does that mean? \u201cIt means you can\u2019t resign.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can\u2019t. \u201cCan\u2019t,\u201d he said. I can\u2019t quit my job. That was a thought that had never occurred to\nme. My first reaction was, \u201cOh yeah,\nwatch me.\u201d I\u2019ll just leave and never\ncome back. What\u2019s that if not quitting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then\nthe security officer said four words that froze me in my tracks: \u201cThe 59 minute rule.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m\nguessing none of you know what the 59 minute rule is, but I knew perfectly well\nwhat he meant. In the 1960s two NSA\nmathematicians had gone on vacation together for a week. On the following Monday they didn\u2019t show up\nfor work. Their boss was surprised, but\nassumed they had just decided to extend their trip. The next day goes by, and then the next. They still don\u2019t show up. The supervisor was getting worried, but still\ndidn\u2019t do anything. The following week\nthe two mathematicians show up on Soviet television. They had defected, taking everything they\nknew about NSA with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NSA\nreacted by improving their security processes, and the 59 minute rule was\nborn. This is it: If you are going to be more than 59 minutes\nlate for work, you must call your supervisor to inform them. If you don\u2019t, your supervisor must contact\nthe security office. A security officer\nwill then try to contact you. If they\ncan\u2019t get in touch with you, they will call the FBI, and the FBI will come\nlooking for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 59\nminute rule. Every NSA employee knew and\nlived by this rule every day. I\ninstantly grasped what this meant for me. \nI could choose to never show up for work again. But if I did not officially severe my\nemployment with the NSA, then I would have to call in by 8:59am, Monday through\nFriday, every week, for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was\ntrapped, and I knew it. When the shock\nwore off, I took a deep breath. Slowly I\ncame to understood what must be done. \nThe only thing that can beat bad bureaucracy is better bureaucracy. And I could do bureaucracy as well as\nanyone. I would show up the next Monday,\nand work the system. And that\u2019s what I\ndid. I spent the weekend reading\nregulations, I set up meetings, provided documentation, wrote memos and got\nother people to write memos, and slowly the wheels of the system began spinning\nin my direction. I met with finance,\nwith legal, with a director who had 10,000 people working under him. More memos were written. Consensus was formed. I never once saw or spoke to my nemesis, but\nhis novel legal theory was discredited, and so was he. NSA paid me for an extra week to quit. By Friday I had my signature and became a\nfree man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is\neasy to take for granted a freedom that has never been infringed. After my experience at NSA, I have always\nappreciated the freedom to quit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Almost everyone has had the experience of quitting a job. It\u2019s not that hard. You just go to your boss and say \u201cTake this job and \u2026 find someone who will better appreciate its benefits.\u201d But things are more complicated when that job is with the National Security Agency. I joined NSA at Fort Meade, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}