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I always start out with I was a nobody and didn't do anything exciting or interesting which is the truth. It just sounds more exciting than it really was. I answered the phone and said "so and so is not available, can I take a message" on unsecured lines. I got the job because I was the only one in the temp unit awaiting orders who wasn't there for disciplinary reasons. The "so and so" was a political appointee.

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Sounds like a vacation! I was a nobody too, but I did get to see some wild shit because I have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; got me demoted a couple of times too. I also had a habit of tinkering with things I had no business tinkering with, to my commander’s chagrin, and sometimes, but rarely, delight. Sometimes I miss it for a few minutes, but I really don’t.

That’s pretty much the gist of what I say these days. There’s usually questions about the wild shit or the tinkering, but that’s pretty much where it ends, because there’s no way those stories are true. My wife didn’t believe most of them until she met some of the people I worked with and she realized that the stories I told were the sane ones: they have even crazier ones.

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