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Brad worked for me at Zoto for about 6 months back in 2006 or so. I found him fiercely intellectual.

He moved to Oklahoma from England where he said he had been living with his mom. Because the driving age is 17 there, he hadn't gotten his license yet. I took to picking him up from the house and then letting him drive my car to the office so he could log time for his driver's permit.

One day he accidentally ran a stop sign, directly in the path of another car. I ended up shouting something like "Stop Brad!" at him, and reaching over and touching him on the arm as we squealed to a stop. What resulted was something I never had observed in a person before. He literally shut completely down, and for a about 5 minutes just sat there with his eyes closed, breathing. I tried getting his attention, but he was completely catatonic. I pulled the parking brake, and put the car in park because I had no idea what was going on with him.

I ended up asking him to leave Zoto a few months later, because of this and other bizarre incidences, which I chalked mostly up to being a young kid coming from a split marriage. I'm still not exactly sure what caused his strange behaviors, but it makes me sad to see that he went and straightened his life out, only to have all this happen to him.

:(




I hope this came up during the interview stage of his TS-SSBI clearance application.


Yeah, no. They never called me.


Maybe because he was under 18 when he worked for you? I don't really know how the rules work for children.

But getting fired from a job should ABSOLUTELY be investigated, and I'd assume "talk to the boss" is the standard for that.

That's some negligence right there! (or, he left it off his application entirely, and they didn't do enough checking to verify employment at the time, and see the gap)


They don't consider history as a minor for the SSBI. And usually don't look at anything older than 7 years prior anyway.


If they don't consider history as a minor, they should refuse to grant clearances to anyone under 25 or 28.

I also seem to recall being granted S, TS, TS/SCI, etc. is a lot easier/faster if you're in the military than if you're a contractor. Different queue, different investigators, and higher presumed loyalty to the US. (i.e. you were willing to roll the dice and potentially be stuck as a cook for 4-8 years, which a spy might not be willing to do)


Yeah, I know a few folks who got their TS investigations opened and shut in about 2 months. It takes longer the older you are anyway especially if you've moved around a lot or have foreign relatives. I've seen it take as long as 3 years.

I think minors aren't really investigated because they simply don't have much of a paper trail to look into. Their security profile matches their parent's more than their own. But who knows.


"He literally shut completely down, and for a about 5 minutes just sat there with his eyes closed, breathing. I tried getting his attention, but he was completely catatonic."

When I was much younger (middle school) I had a friend who did this. I always wondered about this particular behavior. Anybody here know anything about why this happens?




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