r/nottheonion • u/08830 • Sep 23 '22
CIA Launches First Podcast, ‘The Langley Files,’ Which Reveals That Working at the Agency Is More Boring Than Hollywood Makes It Seem
https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/cia-first-podcast-langley-files-1235381103/8.2k
u/ShoddyJuggernaut975 Sep 23 '22
No surprise there. Every business has a few "glamorous" jobs and a boatload of boring everyday stuff. There's a guy or gal who works for the CIA that does stuff like order office supplies.
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u/shogi_x Sep 23 '22
Exactly. There's probably an element of manipulation going on here, but it's definitely still true that most of their jobs are dull.
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u/Cpt_plainguy Sep 23 '22
Can confirm, the vast majority of CIA employees are analysts who do nothing but comb through data and intelligence from around the world depending on thier language expertise. It's definitely not all behind enemy lines style field work like movies would have people believe
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u/hypnos_surf Sep 23 '22
The reality actually sounds like a ot of fun.
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u/beatenmeat Sep 23 '22
It only sounds fun until you realize you’ll be going through some of the most boring “intelligence” to exist. A lot of it is completely useless, so you’ll spend time having to read through some rather pointless crap to get to something useful, then likely copy/paste said info into a form and call it a day. If you’re REALLY lucky and find something juicy you may even get to make a death by PowerPoint presentation where you can then explain it to a bunch of people who either don’t truly understand what you briefed them on or kill them with boredom by then end.
That’s how 99% of your days will be as an analyst.
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u/HamPotatoe Sep 23 '22
There used to be a lot of "can't believe I make $X to do this" posts like early 2016, then the sub became super bleak as people seemed to realize they had no job security unless they did like 5 people's jobs and then we're criminally underpaid. That might be my own biases coming out
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u/moralprolapse Sep 23 '22
Well the difference is that you don’t get to pick the useless stuff you read and talk about. It’s picked for you.
One the the reasons I went to law school was because I thought I loved arguing. Turns out, I only love arguing about stuff I find interesting.
Wana talk about whether or not Eminem is overrated as a lyricist? Let’s go!
Wana argue about how important the difference is between ‘shall’ and ‘may’ in a regulation about filing deadlines?
I want a do-over on career choice.
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Sep 23 '22
That was a huge awakening for me too. I thought I was smart until I went to university and realized I only liked diving into topics I liked. I didn't enjoy learning as much as I enjoyed half assed browsing websites online in my free time.
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u/cockOfGibraltar Sep 23 '22
Imagine they find a terrorists hardrive and he's a huge fan and writer of erotic fanfic. Someone has to sift through it all.
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u/Unsd Sep 23 '22
That happens and is extensively documented. OBL had a treasure trove of porn. And Disney movies.
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u/BigTentBiden Sep 23 '22
I'm game. I miss being in school.
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u/beatenmeat Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
I mean some people enjoy it. I enjoyed parts of it, but I was a special case where I lucked out and got to do things most of my peers didn’t. Unfortunately I found when my luck ran out that I didn’t so much enjoy the regular stuff that is generally what the rest of the analysts did. It is some of the most kind numbing and repetitive stuff you can do, but there were a few guys and girls I worked with that enjoyed it. To each their own, but that part definitely wasn’t for me.
Ninja edit: to clarify how boring it can be, years and years ago one of people I worked with wrote a script that could literally shit out the daily report for us in a few moments. You’d then look over the doc and tweak it for corrections and be done with it. Normally that report would take you a couple hours of manual searching and copy/pasting. They offered to buy said script off the dude but absolutely lowballed the fuck out of him, so obviously he didn’t sell it. Instead when he wouldn’t sell they just blacklisted use of the script…something that saved countless manhours because they wanted to be cheap fucks about it.
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u/waitthissucks Sep 23 '22
What the fuck? They blacklisted a script that made everything more efficient? Sounds like a horrible decision by someone. What idiots.
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u/SJane3384 Sep 23 '22
Welcome to the federal government lol
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u/nookie-monster Sep 23 '22
As someone who worked in the private sector for 20+ years (before becoming self employed), let me assure you: this phenomena isn't restricted to government. The idea that corporations are smooth and efficient and government is big and dumb is as wrong as it can get.
I've seen this kind of behavior at almost every company I worked for.
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Sep 23 '22
Hey now! Your local government is just as bad, only on a smaller scale.
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u/fattynuggetz Sep 23 '22
Many people in the govt justify funding by talking about how many employees they have.
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u/highfivingmf Sep 23 '22
Yeah and all the agencies are absolutely chock full of power hungry social climbers who don't give a fuck about anything but control and their own image
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u/BigTentBiden Sep 23 '22
I'd probably be the ones who enjoy it. I like boring. Part of why I enjoyed security guard work.
Nice and boring.
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u/ThrowawayTwatVictim Sep 23 '22
I always heard security was boring 'until it wasn't'
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u/ItsJustAnAdFor Sep 23 '22
This story is hard to believe. If you invent something at work you don’t have the choice to sell it; the company or agency owns it because that’s why they pay you.
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Sep 23 '22
Also, “script” usually describes a simple program and what’s being described doesn’t sound insanely complicated or proprietary. Hard to imagine a run-of-the-mill script having enough value to justify price negotiations with a federal agency.
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u/SarcasticOptimist Sep 23 '22
Basically doc review for attorneys. If there's a smoking gun or juicy evidence it's buried in paperwork.
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u/scarlettvvitch Sep 23 '22
I worked for an archive for 2 years and I gotta tell you it has been the funnest job ever. Me, paperwork, photos and my headphones.
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u/Glittering_Emu3124 Sep 23 '22
Can’t wait for the episode on Chile and Allende
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u/Cook__Pass_Babtridge Sep 23 '22
Or DRC and Patrice Lumumba.
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u/Both_Philosophy2507 Sep 23 '22
Or trafficking sweet sweet cocaine
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u/hyperbolichamber Sep 23 '22
I can’t think of anything more boring than trading weapons and cocaine to overthrow governments and install fascist regimes.
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u/LBraden Sep 23 '22
Aye, I worked security at an archive warehouse for about 8 months before I got moved to a busy home furnishings warehouse for 3 weeks before it unexpectedly closed (bankruptcy) and the landlords reverted to their own security company.
Best security job I had as 90% of it was sat in the CCTV office with music on and occasionally dealing with visitors.
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u/I0A0I Sep 23 '22
Have so many sites I've just been playing my Steam Deck at. Most don't care because it keeps the guard awake.
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u/LBraden Sep 23 '22
Aye, that one and my first site I was at for several years didn't mind me with my laptop at gatehouse or in CCTV "when site is closed" as I was actually the least distracted of the guards when on it.
That and I was always the most filled DOR of the shifts with any real issues that cropped up, and the "End of Shift Paperwork" sheet listed the lesser issues like "Fox set off Fence Alarm at 23:20, 00:52, 04:00" things.
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u/nashbrownies Sep 23 '22
Yeah we have to have a guard posted outside when external companies are working on premises. We set them up with their own table, a power strip, a big outdoor heater. A lot of them just chill out with a laptop all day, no one cares if they are always on point. One dude is always playing some version of Civilization
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u/napleonblwnaprt Sep 23 '22
Well....
https://www.intelligencecareers.gov/
The IC, including CIA, is always hiring people of all backgrounds.
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u/getspun97 Sep 23 '22
I have a background in drug addiction and petty crime, is the CIA hiring?
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Sep 23 '22
I actually have a CIA recruiters card from when I was approached to work for them after Afghanistan. I like telling people that story because it's such a "cool guy" thing to say but I always end it by admitting I would never in a million years be an actual cool guy, they were just recruiting a bunch of people who worked with them previously/had security clearance. Supposedly one of the guys we knew ended up working logistics while we were standing up africom, so pretty boring shit tbh. I wasn't built to be behind a desk, I'd rather work in construction than be an analyst lmao fuck that jazz
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u/hackingdreams Sep 23 '22
Even the OSS had hundreds and hundreds of people whose job it was to sit in an office and collate information from the field.
It's rare we ever see the truth of intelligence - it's a lot of collecting paperwork and looking for patterns, things people are trying to hide.
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u/wienercat Sep 23 '22
Any job where data is the basis of decisions, there is an office of office peons crunching data and analyzing results.
It's the reality of any job. Most of the "fun" work is backed by a ton of boring appearing work.
But a CIA Analyst working in an office combing through hundreds of files of intelligence or big data to get actionable intelligence is rarely exciting or sexy. It's nerds, doing what they do best... nerd shit.
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u/pasher5620 Sep 23 '22
Wasn’t the OSS even worse than the CIA and full of corruption and nepotism? Like, the CIA is awful but the OSS was exactly the same it was just even more of a social elite boys club.
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u/davtruss Sep 23 '22
What they fail to mention is that "analysts" are just like employees in other major corporations, the cream tends to rise to the top, unless the truth is inconvenient.
Then there are case officers, or "desk jockeys." But those are the folks who handle the assistant cultural attache at the Moscow Embassy.
And sure, the special operators must be very good at their jobs. They are often former Seals, Green Berets, Army Rangers, etc. And occasionally they are trained from the ground up while being made to look like accountants or FBI. :)
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Sep 23 '22
I attended some open recruitment events for the CIA when I was in college, and this is pretty much exactly how they put it. 95% of CIA work is done behind a desk. If you want to be Jason Bourne, join the Special Forces.
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u/Rexel-Dervent Sep 23 '22
As a librarian I can imagine how well a trained Combat Diver would maintain and safely update the 9000 page "Chinese Agents, Known Aliases of" file.
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u/SaltyBarDog Sep 23 '22
Hoover was big on hiring accountants into the FBI. Something about the meticulous attention to detail or some shit. Wife's uncle got an accounting degree and then became field agent. Nice enough guy but he was about as bland as Wonder bread.
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u/davtruss Sep 23 '22
This makes sense, because I suspect Hoover understood the concept of "follow the money."
And when not doing that, "follow the prostitutes."
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u/pepesilvia_esq Sep 23 '22
It’s why mi6 stopped at 007. Only 7 of them get fun work. The rest is all paperwork
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u/hebdomad7 Sep 23 '22
008 and 009 would disagree.
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u/effa94 Sep 23 '22
Aren't those the ones who die in every movie they are in? Sounds like a shitty job
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u/BadBoyFTW Sep 23 '22
For England, James?
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u/YanniBonYont Sep 23 '22
Trading cocaine for political hits. Murdering govt officials in the 3rd world. You know, fun at work
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u/Legal-Software Sep 23 '22
It's easy to have fun at work when there are no consequences for your actions.
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u/cgn-38 Sep 23 '22
A huge percentage of guys in high security are friggin mormons because everyone else does drugs.
The guys in the field? I never met a mormon. Two different groups.
Dull is part of the religion with those guys. They have an ongoing battle against masterbation to win. The cold war was secondary.
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u/DEWOuch Sep 23 '22
The Secret Service also employs an inordinate number of Mormons. They like obedience and abstinence.
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u/Lady_DreadStar Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
Former Mormon here who has gone through the federal law enforcement process: It’s mainly a security clearance thing.
A ton of regular people, even though they themselves don’t do drugs or commit crimes, still associate with their felon relatives, or have trashy baby mamas/daddy’s who cause trouble and can’t stay out of jail, or don’t like paying their parking tickets.
It’s not that Mormons don’t do drugs, it’s that usually even 3-4 degrees of separation with Mormons has nothing but squeaky clean people. Everybody you know and everybody who knows everybody you know is straight laced and a safe bet.
Oh, and tons of economic privilege- generational wealth from negotiating control of their own state, bargain-basement cheap BYU tuition resulting in no student loans, being overwhelmingly blonde in a society that greatly favors and rewards that- play a huge part as well.
Probably the biggest purpose of a security clearance is making sure you’re immune to bribes.
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u/zimirken Sep 23 '22
I always wondered why more people don't just take a bribe and then just not do what they asked you to. What are they gonna do, sue?
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u/Lady_DreadStar Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
Often, the people trying to bribe you are more than willing to ruin your life.
If they can show you accepted a bribe- your ass is toast even if you didn’t act on anything. It’s seen as a ‘you just haven’t acted on it… yet’.
And for Mormons, there is a lot of spiritual accountability at play too. They aren’t like Baptists who will commit a drive-by shooting, snort an 8-ball, then sit in the pews on Sunday like nothing happened because “God forgives”. 🤣
Mormons don’t ‘officially’ shun fuck ups like JWs- but they do effectively shun them. You wouldn’t want to be a Mormon who got caught accepting a bribe. Both God and everyone you know and love will be pissed at you.
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u/drewkungfu Sep 23 '22
Supposedly the FBI too. Though it is a fact that an large portion comes from Texas A&M too. (Their current? president formerly work high in the fbi)
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u/GarfieldTrout Sep 23 '22
They must have not been invited on that Colombia trip
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u/OpSecBestSex Sep 23 '22
God can't see them outside the US
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u/Yancy_Farnesworth Sep 23 '22
God can't see them in Utah either given the scandals coming out of the Mormon church.
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u/RamenJunkie Sep 23 '22
At first I misread that as "morons".
Not to insult mormons, I just read it wrong.
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u/drengr84 Sep 23 '22
Forget logistics and support jobs. It's a lot more boring to be scouring thru thousand of hours of surveillance video, or searching thru years of paperwork and hard drives for evidence.
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u/finaljusticezero Sep 23 '22
puts on conspiracy theory hat
This is exactly what they want us to think. Can't fool me.
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u/Zaptruder Sep 23 '22
gets into CIA
"Awlright! The fun starts now!"
30 years later
"Y'know, a small part of me honestly thought that at some point I'd get called up to do the fun stuff."
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u/OuOutstanding Sep 23 '22
You’d be surprised in how much paper work is involved in overthrowing democratically elected governments in order to protect corporate interests.
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u/MattieShoes Sep 23 '22
And facilities guys who replace the lights in the ceiling, fix loose doorknobs, make sure the heating/AC is working, etc. And guys who replace keyboards when people spill coffee on them, or fix that jammed printer. There's probably a large number of janitorial staff emptying trash, vacuuming, cleaning toilets, polishing floors. And guys who are middle managers. And HR people who deal with the exact same bullshit as HR people everywhere. And guys who manage shipping and receiving packages, which are probably mostly computers and monitors and desks and chairs and stuff. And somebody must be taking care of the grounds -- tree trimming, bushes, sprinklers, etc. A bunch of accountants tracking finances...
And then there's the guys who probably technically do cool shit, but they're so insulated from the application of the cool shit that they're doing that they're just... writing code, setting up databases, attending meetings, writing emails, or other relatively mundane tasks.
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u/n00bst4 Sep 23 '22
John, can you order coffees and pizzas for the conf room 6 ? Please let me know when you're delivering it. Thanks John.
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u/EHnter Sep 23 '22
Heyyy!! Purchasing happens to be a chill job. I mean at least I won't get shot. Idk why everyone gets a badge and ID though. I hope it doesn't complicate some things in the future.
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u/CurlSagan Sep 23 '22
To be fair, working in Hollywood is also a lot more boring than Hollywood makes it seem.
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u/themeatbridge Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
All jobs suck. If they didn't, you wouldn't have to pay people to do them. Some jobs suck worse than others, and some jobs don't pay nearly what they are actually worth, but even your dream job has an aspect to it that would drive you crazy.
Edit to respond to everyone saying how much they love their jobs, that's not a rebuttal of what I said. I love my job, too. And if I didn't need money, I might still enjoy the work, but I would also spend more time fishing, volunteering at my kids' school, visiting with friends and family, working on home improvement projects, playing music, exercising, and video gaming. There might be a few people that would still do what they do without getting paid, but I guarantee nobody would do it as much, and there are parts of your job you wouldn't do if you didn't have to. Even if your job is to play with puppies all day, you still have to pick up shit sometimes.
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u/pictures_at_last Sep 23 '22
“Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job. I bet even people like Cohen the Barbarian get up in the morning thinking, ‘Oh, no, not another day of crushing the jeweled thrones of the world beneath my sandalled feet.’”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures83
u/SilasX Sep 23 '22
Cohen the barbarian? Like, he pauses the pillaging for Shabbat?
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u/UhOhSparklepants Sep 23 '22
If you’ve never read Terry Pratchet’s Discworld series I highly recommend it. Cohen the Barbarian is an elderly warrior character long past his heyday who still crushes his enemies, just with a little more geriatric flair.
The books are largely self contained and you can pretty much read them in any order, though there are recurring characters and continuing story arcs.
I’d recommend Mort, Guards! Guards!, Wyrd Sisters or Going Postal as good books to start with. I think there was a BBC movie of Going Postal made if books aren’t your scene. The BBC series/films are pretty close to the book and really capture the humor and magic of the series.
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u/Kirk_Kerman Sep 23 '22
Cohen the Barbarian is a Discworld character. The Discworld series does a lot of parody of the fantasy genre as a whole, and Cohen is basically "what if Conan the barbarian lived to 97?". He's old and tired and unbelievably good at killing people because you don't get old in the barbarian game without being good at it. Laments about the world changing and there being a lack of snake temples bursting with gold and maidens to rescue, since he's one of the few to outlive the heroic age of the world.
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u/Devonance Sep 23 '22
I work for NASA, my job doesn't suck. If I had enough money to live, I'd do it for free! (Don't tell them that, I like money).
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u/Cautemoc Sep 23 '22
I'm also a software engineer and I absolutely despise writing test scripts. I don't know how you could enjoy it but I wish my company had someone who did so I didn't have to.
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u/KivogtaR Sep 23 '22
I have a friend who is a database developer. I don't know much about it, but I assume it's the most boring job in the software world. He loves it. He's good at it. He's got titles and shit he's a "Senior Database Developer" now but instead of leading a team he just gets shuffled around fixing other teams issues and filling in when a lead is needed.
The guy makes bonkers money, he works from home, and he gets to pick his hours as long as his work is done on time. It's the benefits everyone dreams of.... but for an awful sounding job. He loves it though.
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u/riptidemm Sep 23 '22
Anyone in IT that loves their job or has a high satisfaction tends to love solving puzzles. Also they may not talk to end users.
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u/fospher Sep 23 '22
I’m going into this field and absolutely love it. I have caught myself solving work problems in my off hours and have had to force myself to rest and have fun to avoid accidentally doing unpaid work lmao. Good to hear this is boring and dumb for most otherwise I wouldn’t have a job!
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u/phd_depression101 Sep 23 '22
I used to write test scripts for a company as part of my internship, I found it quite entertaining but then again it was not what I would like to do for more than a few months :)
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u/PurryFury Sep 23 '22
Sometimes i like writing tests. It's almost like a meditation for me. 2 hours of just writing cases and nothing else, at some point it becomes muscle memory and i relax.
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u/SaltyBarDog Sep 23 '22
I did an internship at NASA writing software for test equipment. Not a lot of excitement but I didn't have people blaming me for launch failures.
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u/vagga2 Sep 23 '22
Maybe dislike but not drive crazy. I genuinely enjoy my main job (camp instructor), with all kinds of groups it’s always fun and challenging, not to mention a funny reminder every few minutes that kids are fucking stupid. Also my work in IT is only frustrating because obnoxious policies get in the way of improving systems, and my freelance web dev stuff is genuinely fun almost always (though all projects so far I have been given 100% freedom on). Especially typicality only doing 30 hours a week on any one of these adds enough variety to keep it constantly fun, new and challenging and if I had all expenses to live covered I’d do them for free.
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u/MarlinMr Sep 23 '22
That's not actually true. There are jobs that don't suck, but also have pay. There are jobs that don't suck but don't have enough pay for people to do it. And there are jobs that are not paid.
Do you think the people who edit Wikipedia love those jobs? Because they do it for free
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u/mtranda Sep 23 '22
Regarding the Wikipedia point, I think they do love their jobs. It's the joy of sharing knowledge or the satisfaction of correcting even a minor mistake and
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u/Dr_Does_Enough Sep 23 '22
This is what i struggle to come to terms with. I'm about to be 30 and I've worked probably close to 20 or more different jobs. They all start out fun because I'm learning new things and meeting new people. But after a while I get tired of completing the same tasks over and over again, some people I work with start to annoy me, the pay ends up not being worth it.
For me, I've gained a new perspective towards people who have worked the same job 20, 30, 40 years. They have become master's and are disciplined enough to keep at it and retire from just doing that one job.
Now granted, some people are stuck and maybe feel they can't leave their job, or have commitments outside of their control. But again, for those who are able to stick with something for as long as I've been alive, I come to admire that strength.
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u/CjBoomstick Sep 23 '22
You had me thinking for a while, but i've come to conclude that I typically begin hating my jobs when I start hating my managers, or my pay.
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u/somanyroads Sep 23 '22
I don't get the impression that a lot of the press and interviews that go along with promoting a new film you're in, as an actor, isn't a very fun endeavor.
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u/yiannistheman Sep 23 '22
"That whole Iran-Contra thing? Boring as shit. Now, there was this one time that the cointel chief was walking around the entire day without realizing he had TP on his shoe. We laughed, and laughed - and then went back to bringing cocaine into the US illegally"
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u/doogles Sep 23 '22
"Look, teaching all those South American dictators how to torture people was SUUUUUUCH a drag. That's why we called it the School of the Americas."
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u/hashi1996 Sep 23 '22
I cannot imagine ever in my life wanting to listen to a podcast from the fucking CIA. Like if I ever turn into such an empty headed cow willingly taking my propaganda strait down the throat I would hope to at least have decent enough friends that would take me out back and shoot me.
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u/bondagewithjesus Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
dont worry you just get it indirectly through the media. Operation mocking bird never ended. Change my mind. Even if say you never watched or used any social media or other media your friends probably do and through cultural osmosis you'd be fed propaganda.
Edit: https://youtu.be/NK1tfkESPVY John Stockwell former cia agent explains exactly how the cia launders propaganda and often outright lies to manufacture consent for hostilities against other countries. Starts at 1:40
Edit2: if you want a start on what operation mockingbird is, here's a cursory glance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird Keep in mind Wikipedia isn't the most reputable and tends to sanitise history when it suits them. Funnily enough there was a report that came out showing thousands of wiki edits were from computers in known intelligence agencies. Lastly for my claim about government computers editing wiki pages https://www.reuters.com/article/us-security-wikipedia-idUSN1642896020070816 There was also one showing the most active reddit users were mostly at military bases. But you can google it anyone who posts that's story tends to get banned or have there comment removed. In whichever sub.
Edit3: haven't listened yet but I wouldn't be surprised if the cia podcast made more insane claims than private media to make the already over the top nature of private media more believable. They already do it with radio free Asia/Europe
Fuck if it is that at least they're finally being semi open about things.93
Sep 23 '22
Funnily enough there was a report that came out showing thousands of wiki edits were from computers in known intelligence agencies.
There's also the fun tidbit that in 2013 Reddit published their annual statistics and the most "reddit addicted city" was Eglin AFB, a base that houses a ton of Special Warfare and testing units; that blog post was also quickly removed.
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u/kcg5 Sep 23 '22
….this is insane
Edit -
“Most addicted city (over 100k visits total) Eglin Air Force Base, FL Oak Brook, IL South St. Paul, MN”
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u/bondagewithjesus Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
Yeah I knew about that but didn't post because I know reddit is trying to cover that shit up. Nevermind some of the board prior to reddit had questionable careers before put it that way
Edit: figured if it didn't add it the rest of my post would stay and be less likely to be removed. I left the right breadcrumbs to help. Can't do that with a removed comment.
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u/GarfieldTrout Sep 23 '22
If you’ve been published in The Atlantic more than like half a dozen times, you’re probably part of Mockingbird whether you know it or not
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u/bondagewithjesus Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
That's a fair assessment. My guess is he's speaking truth but not the whole truth to keep up the illusion of freedom and democracy. The CIA will classify things then declassify them after everybody stopped care. I think if he truly said anything more than what the cia was OK with ,we'd never know his name because he'd be dead. Still a good insight. A lot of people think this is shit we used to do not anymore. I feel it's liker when you can't hide something anymore so you go into damage control which this might be and if it is jesus God knows how much worse it is.
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u/ting_bu_dong Sep 23 '22
It probably was boring as shit. I mean, they weren't the guys actually moving the drugs or anything.
The banality of evil.
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u/Askmeaboutmy_Beergut Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
Go watch "When the mountains tremble" about Guatemala.
You'll be so mad you'll cry. You'll also just cry. Actual footage of the atrocities heaped upon innocent mayans. All thanks to you know who.
Edit: this channel is the only one that has it broken into 9min segments. It's hard to find nowadays.
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u/spaceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Sep 23 '22
This is like the mafia showing all the boring legal activities they practice every day.
We already know you do mostly boring and legal work. And we already know you'll never talk about the other stuff.
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u/Raised_bi_Wolves Sep 23 '22
Hahaha such a funny image, a podcast about the mafia in America and its just "Vinnie was always the best at creating and managing garbage pickup schedules for the guys, you'd swear he was a computer with how efficient his routing orders would be. In today's episode, we talk to Vinnie about some of his favorite routes and his thoughts on modern advancements in waste management"
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u/SpacemanTomX Sep 23 '22
Would unironically love a series like this.
"Today we are meeting with Eduardo, former accountant for the Gulf Cartel. His expertise is on domestic and foreign tax codes. Eduardo let's gets started with some tips to maximize itemized deductions."
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u/Daniel_The_Thinker Sep 23 '22
"anyway the treated plastic cost 5 cents more a yard but when you're wrapping up cocaine, it's better to go that yard.
Anyways next time we buy a truck for the death squad I think we should go all Hondas for the lower maintenance cost"
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u/Mysticpoisen Sep 23 '22
Check out Our Thing. It's an older reformed mobster talking about the life and the business.
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Sep 23 '22
This, it's just a prop so people don't look behind the certain or step back to gaze at the sum of their wrecks over seventy+ years.
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u/ElGosso Sep 23 '22
Do you think they take requests? I want to ask them how many people Gina Haskell personally waterboarded in the Thailand detention site.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_ANT_FARMS Sep 23 '22
Yea this is pretty hysterical. "Hey guys, CIA here, look how boring we are! Look at all these mundane projects we work on and thats totally all we do! Martin Luthor King, Charles Manson? No no we had nothing to do with these people, we're just too boring!"
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u/trer24 Sep 23 '22
Did we organize a few coups and depose some world leaders back in the day? Maybe. But I'll tell you what's worse...when it's lunch time and you go to the office cafeteria and open that fridge door and find out that someone ate your shit! And you've been dreaming about the fuckin' lo mein all the way the fuck over here!
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u/Eau_de_poisson Sep 23 '22
I actually live near their campus and sometimes drive past there.
Just by eyeballing the aggressively long lines of cars trying to leave during rush hour with no intersection traffic light, what’s worse is 100% getting on to Dolley Madison after 4pm.
Never accept a job on a big campus feeding into a busy road unless it has an intersection traffic light!!
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u/Pink_Revolutionary Sep 23 '22
"back in the day" implies they aren't the ones constantly trying things still in Cuba (the recent pandemic protests) and Venezuela (literally sent people to attempt a coup, they got arrested). And that coup in Bolivia a few years ago was also their handiwork. They're still very much active in doing evil things.
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u/S-WordoftheMorning Sep 23 '22
Ain't no podcast like a CIA podcast, 'cause a CIA podcast ██ █████ ███████ ██████████████
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u/hmmmletmethinkboutit Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
I tried clicking that more times than I’d like to admit
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u/TripleJeopardy3 Sep 23 '22
I had some experience with some CIA personnel at one point and learned a bit about their career paths and expectations of employees. I left believing it was one of the most boring, conservative places you could work. It seemed from my limited exposure that you were part of a very large machine and should be completely devoted to the machine at all times, irrespective of how mundane the job.
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u/PandaCat22 Sep 23 '22
Years ago a former CIA employee did an AMA.
Even after he talked about the awful things the CIA routinely does (for example, he refused to say that the CIA didn't use child prostitutes to cultivate assets), he kept repeating the line that he would join again if called to "defend his country".
It seriously gave off culty vibes of doing whatever the CIA asked you no matter what.
Edit: link to the AMA
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u/somanyroads Sep 23 '22
Honestly, I would expect an ex-CIA agent to remain discrete and positive, I'm sure the agency would have no problems tracking their correspondences online.
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u/vasya349 Sep 23 '22
A post like that is actually way more believable for people to like them than a super pro-CIA one. It’s much easier to win the “flawed servant of the people” look than pretending to be perfect until somebody mentions you were involved in multiple genocides. The AMA normalizes the CIA, also I feel like this guy is definitely a clown selling stuff.
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u/doofpooferthethird Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
I think it’s also plausible for a job to sound mundane, while also being part of something inhumane.
“You took part in the Holocaust? Dear god what was that like?”
“Eh, you know, the usual. Lots of paperwork, petty office politics, boss was annoying sometimes. Typical clerk job”
Same goes for the CIA, probably, the vast majority of the civil servants there are just keeping the wheels greased, handling logistics and such, or doing above-board analyst stuff with non-covert sources.
And if they do happen to intersect with all the nasty crap the CIA has done over the decades, they either just shrug their shoulders and go “eh, national security”, or they don’t even fully understand what they’re doing
This doesn’t let them off the hook, but it’s scary how easy it is for otherwise normal people to end up supporting very evil things just by “keeping your head down” and “doing your job”
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u/thirdegree Sep 23 '22
The banality of evil.
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u/LouSputhole94 Sep 23 '22
Somewhere in the Holocaust there absolutely was a guy whose job was just sweeping the floors. They were Nazi floors, but he was just sweeping them.
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u/Subject-Base6056 Sep 23 '22
Can we all just agree that we shouldnt take anything from these sources at face value?
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u/TheNoidbag Sep 23 '22
There's a whole part of the game Control when you 'beat' it and get stuck in a mental timeloop wherein your day working for the Federal Bureau of Control is just delivering mail, getting the boss coffee, etc. Which makes you realize the mundanity of the job that everyone except the people working directly with the supernatural shit deal with.
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u/Peakomegaflare Sep 23 '22
Fuckin' Control man, it's so damn good. The whole of the universe just is so well written! I can't wait to see what the sequals for it and the other series that are connected have in store.
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u/HarbingerDe Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
The machine regularly plays a role in overthrowing democratic governments and installing fascists... Can't have people be anything but unquestioningly devoted.
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u/Cpt_plainguy Sep 23 '22
To bad only a handful of people actually get to do the over throwing, everyone else just gets to crunch data to make it easier to do
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u/asund_ Sep 23 '22
Someone’s got to train people to machine gun a village of farmers and dump the bodies in the well too.
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u/Flavaflavius Sep 23 '22
That's the green berets' job. The CIA is more "let's write a report about how their currency is gonna crash next year so the President can read it and authorize some sanctions to destabilize them."
99% of CIA stuff is basically just accumulating and sorting data, same as the NSA except foreign instead of domestic.
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u/shogi_x Sep 23 '22
"We should make a podcast."
"Great idea! We've got decades of exciting stories! What should we talk about?"
"How boring our job is."
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u/zanderkerbal Sep 23 '22
It's propaganda, trying to make themselves sound more normal so people forget about the skeletons in the closet.
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u/jimbo224 Sep 23 '22
Thank you. I can't believe people are actually going along with the CIA's narrative in the comments
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u/Markles102 Sep 23 '22
It's believable though. CIA does some fucked up shit but I believe the majority of it is number crunching, file sorting, and information gathering and spying. Not necessarily going out to do stuff
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u/Axuo Sep 23 '22
Oh they won't talk about overthrowing governments on a public podcast? Must be real boring work then. The CIA would never lie of course
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u/Arigato_MrRoboto Sep 23 '22
Sometimes a disc of crap on a gym floor is just a disc of crap on a gym floor.
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u/spaceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Sep 23 '22
Even if it's just crap, they will still pay for your plastic surgery in the end.
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u/KamachoThunderbus Sep 23 '22
I thought you might be worried... about the security... of your shit...
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u/fireky2 Sep 23 '22
Ah finally a podcast from the guys who wasted money on a cat based listening device and spent the majority of their existence treating the Geneva convention as a to-do list.
Can't wait for nestles podcast about how little slavery they use, or irans podcast on human rights next
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u/hebdomad7 Sep 23 '22
Or two executives from PepsiCo and CocaCola talking about how many people died during the Cola wars...
Also CocaCola had anti union death squads in South America partly funded by the CIA...
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u/DoktuhParadox Sep 23 '22
Jeez I sure hope that that isn't part of a pattern of behavior where the CIA acts in the interests of US-based agribusiness to depose democratically elected socialist governments in order to extract their natural resources!
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u/SharkMilk44 Sep 23 '22
Their options were talk about how boring it is, or talk about the very interesting, most likely classified stuff.
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u/lostbastille Sep 23 '22
What about when they assassinate democratically elected leaders in third world countries?
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u/PandaCat22 Sep 23 '22
Super boring—all they do is funnel drug money to them and don't get in on any of the action. Do you know how infuriating it is to launder money to a third world country?!
All they do is spreadsheets. Just. So. Boring
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u/AcctJustSoICanBitch Sep 23 '22
What about when they assassinate democratically elected leaders in third world countries?
Oh, I'm sure they've got a few in the other two worlds as well.
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u/ddmyssc Sep 23 '22
Nice try. Next you will try and make me believe that being an accountant is nothing like the move ‘The accountant ’
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u/Unhappy_College Sep 23 '22
I’m sure they do want you to think that lol
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u/Smodphan Sep 23 '22
It's how propaganda works. You just find a few people who think a specific way and believe what you want to present. Then it's simple and easy to get them to propagandize what the CIa wants to project. That's why the internet is so easy to use for intelligence agencies.
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u/No_Telephone9938 Sep 23 '22
How come you and the other dude have the exact same avatar?
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u/EhMapleMoose Sep 23 '22
Yes. The CIA is boring and trustworthy and they follow rules. Source: the CIA.
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u/DarkBlueEska Sep 23 '22
When I was starting out in my career I did work that required a high-level security clearance and was located in a secure facility. Not Langley, but I did spend a day there once.
After the clearance came through, I lasted about six months before I couldn't stand the boredom any longer and left for something in private industry.
I wouldn't trust the CIA about much, but they're not lying about the monotony.
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u/Bushfries Sep 23 '22
How can they say it's boring when they've instigated so many coups in this decade alone!
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u/blind_bambi Sep 23 '22
I'm sure they'll be sanitizing their image, while we pretend they're fine now(because we only know parts of what they do years later)
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u/Wagbeard Sep 23 '22
https://journals.openedition.org/inmedia/558
The CIA has been in Hollywood since they were the OSS. I don't know if Americans notice it but your guy's media industry is absolutely loaded with corporate and military propaganda.
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u/simian_ninja Sep 23 '22
Are they going to talk about all the coups that they’ve done? They interference in other countries? Their role in the drug trade?
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u/Bramse-TFK Sep 23 '22
There are marines out there that spent their whole life cutting potatoes, not sure what this proves other than the CIA also has desk jobs.
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u/DesignerCows Sep 23 '22
Unfortunately I literally cannot trust anything they say.
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u/OneLivingMan Sep 23 '22
This is like saying “don’t look into anything the army does, it’s sooOoOoooooOooo boring!”
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u/TheScienceGuy120 Sep 23 '22
I'm sure most of it is quite boring, as almost every job is. However, this sounds like a load of propaganda.
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u/MuddyWaterTeamster Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22
Once you’ve assassinated one democratically elected leader, you’ve really assassinated them all. Nothing too exciting.
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u/MrHedgehogMan Sep 23 '22
But is it sponsored by Squarespace and Manscaped?