BACK FROM WASHINGTON. Here’s the quick review, confidential content redacted. Really, I’m not allowed to talk about a lot of it, or else I’d have to, you know, Jack Bauer you.

So the g-men said they would give me a per diem of 381 for taxi, food and hotel. I was saving my receipts, and booked a room (at 285/night) at the Hilton McLean since Uncle Sam was paying. On Monday, when I arrived at the testing office, the reimbursement lady called my name and just handed me a stack of cash (something like $1143); if I knew they would give me the cash, I would’ve stayed at the Motel 6, know what I mean? Actually, as the link above notes, the Hilton McLean isn’t especially nice. It strikes me as a serviceable 3-star hotel, with a small gym, a nice lobby, friendly staff, decent linens, and a location in an Office Park Jungle. On the downside, the beds were nothing special, the TV was old, the internet wasn’t free, the view was of an office building, the temperature was too cold (even after changing the thermostat), and the doors were so thin you could hear everyone that walked by your room late at night. For $100, that’s fine, but for $285, I want Ritz. (Note on the office park jungle: I went walking around this area. Tons of office buildings, two huge malls, and a few hotels were there, yet I passed like two other people on foot over hours of walking around. The roads were like 4-6 lanes wide everywhere. If this is the future of cities, count me out.) Incidentally, I walked by the Ritz McLean which was down the street, just to check the price. It’s $399 M-T, which is over $100 more than what I paid at the Hilton, but on weekends it can get down to $169, which is amazing. I hear it’s one of the weaker Ritz offerings in the world, but I thought it was quite amazing inside, and even the cheapest rooms offer flatscreen TV, Bulgari bath items, etc. They also have a highly-regarded restaurant that runs like 115/person for the fixed price 4-course, including drink, tax and tip. Ouch. I believe I’ve mentioned before that one of the best hotels I’ve stayed at cost $1/person. It was in SW China at the end of a 15-mile hike. The beds were uncomfortable and the bath was essentially a trough, but the views were amazing, the beer was cold, and it only cost a buck! The #1 thing I learned is that polygraphs are bullshit. I had to take two polygraph exams. I’m not allowed to say what types of questions they asked, but suffice to say, on two different occasions I was more or less accused of lying about issues where I was telling the truth. Worse still, one of the issues wasn’t even something where “well, maybe I have strong feelings about it” or something. Polygraphs don’t work, period. I talked with a few other applicants, and they all had pretty much the same story. I know one girl ripped off the arm wrap, walked out the room, called her future boss and told her than she wouldn’t work for the CIA because of the polygraph BS. Thing #2 that I learned is that the CIA can’t hire the right people. It takes 12 months to process a normal hire (!), though there’s really only 2-3 weeks of actual work, and 11 months of dither and dally. Since most people aren’t willing to wait that long to hear about a job, they lose many qualified prospective employees. Here’s an example: people will Arabic skills have clearly been quite necessary over the last few years. I know for a fact that a CIA Iraq group (there may have been more than one, but this group had dozens of people) a few years ago had *one* Arabic speaker, and he didn’t even know the Iraqi dialect. You’d think that, perhaps, the CIA would offer evening language courses, and give bonuses to employees who expanded their skillset by learning Pashto or Uzbek or Hausa or whatever. No, they don’t. The only language courses are during the day, and are essentially full-time. Who’s in charge? Anybody? Bueller?