[QUOTE=not what you’d expect]
I think you need to put a tail on her so you can tell us!
[/QUOTE]
I read these two together and ended up with a slightly distubing picture of CRSP’s fiancee’s workplace.
The hardest part, I think, the “people are wrong on the internet” thing. You want to jump in there and correct them, but you can’t.
Where do you people get these ideas? If you can’t talk about your work, you say “I can’t talk about my work.” There’s no reason to use all this subterfuge. You think every desk jockey needs to have some sort of “traffic engineer” cover story? Seriously?
When I was a teenager, my family asked what my best friend’s father did for a living. When I said I didn’t know (and I was lying through my teeth), they gave me all sorts of hell for it. “How could you not know?” “Why aren’t you telling us?” Just tell us already!" They would just. Not. STOP. And the more I resisted, the more they needled me.
Finally my mother suggested that maybe he couldn’t talk about it because it was top secret, like a spy. The rest of my family was satisfied with that. He worked for the CIA/FBI/CTU/NCIS/L&O/A&E. Mystery solved.
In fact, he was unemployed and had been so for quite a while. There was a bit of shame in his family over that, so my friend made me promise not to tell anyone.
It’s not uncommon where I live (Washington DC suburbs) in fact, it’s kinda rude to ask what somebody does; and one is immediately chagrined if the person turns out to be forced to make some excuse. And yes, most intelligence work is supremely boring.
Chessic is right, not everyone who can’t discuss it is lucky enough to have been provided with a “Cover Story”. I know at least 20 people with holes on their resumes they are not allowed to explain, and none have been provided with any solution to the problem. Maintaining cover stories is expensive, and reserved for active Operatives. Once you are no longer useful - or if you were never really all that exciting - they keep you under every restriction but offer no support whatsoever.
It’s also true that even if the information is printed on the front page of the Washington Post, if it was classified when you first learned about it, you can’t get into a dicussion. Most intelligence is gained through the aggregation of small facts. This is why the lack of cooperation between the various intelligence agencies is so detrimental.
I also work for a game studio, so I can second this. Waiting for E3 and all its public announcements is like waiting for Christmas for me 
Concur. I’m told it’s a standard “gettin’ to know ya’” question in the rest of the U.S., but living in D.C., I’d never know it.