# What does my neighbor do for a living? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 18, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505 "2010-10-18T01:15:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/21 "2010-10-18T14:30:35Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I am in charge of IT for a pharmaceutical factory that makes body parts and there isn’t a lot of room for error in getting them out the door and on the planes to people that need them. What sort of body parts do we make in factories these days? Like, artificial hearts, or are you growing clones in vats and then harvesting them? ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/22 "2010-10-18T15:58:27Z")
> [@MrFloppy](#): > > My neighbor is male, in his 30s and ex military. Probably has a Bachelors but no post grad education. > His job is such that his immediate friends and neighbors don’t know exactly what he does. > He often travels to foreign countries for months at a time performing some kind of work for the US Government/military. From what we can ascertain, he visits US bases abroad and does some kind of analysis/inspection. > Here’s the baffling part: He is currently sequestered at a military base less than 10 miles form his wife and children, yet he can’t come and see them, nor can they visit him. This has been the case since mid August. He will be home in a few weeks. > > What does he do? That’s easy. He is a UFO researcher, employed by the Air Force as a civilian. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/23 "2010-10-18T16:55:35Z")
In and around DC, asking about someone’s job is rude. You have a 50/50 chance, I think, of them not being able to tell you. When someone asks what I do, I tell them I work for the government. If they keep pressing me, I tell them I’m a professional question dodger. If they keep asking, I keep giving vague answers like “this and that”, “stuff”, “analysis”, and so on. Eventually, they go back to “question dodger” and a light bulb goes off. The point is, while there’s nothing wrong with asking on an anonymous message board or wondering in your head, if you ever try to figure this out in real life, then you’re being extremely rude. Trying to figure it out is like trying to figure out someone’s preferred underwear style. It’s a reasonable thing to wonder about but it’s really strange to keep harping on it, especially out loud. ---
**Author:** ![Shecky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shecky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shecky)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/24 "2010-10-18T16:59:27Z")
Being sequestered @ APG may mean that he now works with either contracting (source selection is a HIGHLY classified process, depending on the contract), or he could be teaching how to use the equipment. Remeber, many of your new neighbors are now CECOM transplants from Fort Monmouth or from Huntsville. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/25 "2010-10-18T17:19:18Z")
I have been sequestered for things as mundane as grammar checking a proposal. It could be almost anything. My first assumption would be that some substantial new information has come in which needs to be sorted through as quickly as possible. Mountains of paper often contain tidbits of vital intel, and intelligence work is usually just that boring. My second thought would be that he’s not really in town, but if his wife can’t know, you certainly can’t either. The bottom line is that she’s certainly under a great deal of stress, and I hope you all are being good friends to her exactly as if he were a deployed soldier. The fact that there is a secret, is in itself a secret, so I hope you aren’t chatting up the other neighbors on the subject. Leave it alone, that life is unbelievably stressful, please don’t add your curiosity to their list of concerns. ---
**Author:** ![Minnie\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Minnie\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minnie_Luna)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/26 "2010-10-18T18:20:40Z")
A friend’s brother was in the Air Force during the first Gulf War, this was what was happening to him. He was an “intelligence analyst”. There were “things” going on and he was on call 24/7 and was not allowed more than 8 minutes from his office, therefore not allowed to leave base. He had orders to deploy, but he was not allowed to tell his family where he was to deploy to. After it was all over, he told us he was in Germany and Turkey, but was not allowed to elaborate. His brother has said that he doesn’t think he did any more than computational analysis of impending threats, etc. He doesn’t think his brother is 007 material and was a very smart guy who had the computer knowledge to run the data and interpret the results. The data and results are classified, thus his vagueness to describe his actual work. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/27 "2010-10-18T22:28:51Z")
Contra-regulation importer of non-medicinal pharmaceutical compunds? With the whole “government thing” as just a smoke screen. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/28 "2010-10-19T17:14:08Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Maybe he just has a second family. :eek: You might be joking, but it’s not a bad bet, paired with vague non-verifiable military achievements. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505/29 "2010-10-19T18:45:32Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > You might be joking, but it’s not a bad bet, paired with vague non-verifiable military achievements. Half joking. And hoping it’s not true. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-my-neighbor-do-for-a-living/557505.md?page=1)