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Jun 17The Defensive Contract
by in Feature Articles on 2017-07-12Working for a contractor within the defense industry can be an interesting experience. Sometimes you find yourself trying to debug an application from a stack trace which was handwritten and faxed out of a secured facility with all the relevant information redacted by overzealous security contractors who believe that you need a Secret clearance just to know that it was a System.NullReferenceException. After weeks of frustration when you are unable to solve anything from a sheet of thick black Sharpie stripes, they may bring you there for on-site debugging.
Beforehand, they will lock up your cell phone, cut out the WiFi antennas from your development laptop, and background check you so thoroughly that they’ll demand explanations for the sins of your great-great-great-great grandfather’s neighbor’s cousin’s second wife’s stillborn son before letting you in the door. Once inside, they will set up temporary curtains around your environment to block off any Secret-rated workstation screens to keep you from peeking and accidentally learning what the Top Secret thread pitch is for the lug nuts of the latest black-project recon jet. Then they will set up an array of very annoying red flashing lights and constant alarm whistles to declare to all the regular staff that they need to watch their mouths because an uncleared individual is present.