Polygraph

As I was waiting in the lobby, I couldn't help but overhear a homeless lady trying to file a report at the front desk about some far fetched incident that happened in OC months ago. Is this what I had in store for myself? Was I going though this whole process just to deal with adults that could not deal with the world...

So I get up to the fifth floor just to find out that my Polygraph administrator had called in sick. Great. I spoke with another polygraph administrator, and I told him about my tight time line to get into the April Academy. He was sympathetic and said he would get to me today but I would have to wait until after his appointment with an informant.

I decided to sneak up to to the top floor were the cafeteria was listed on the elevator directory. Would my "5th Floor Only" visitor badge cause my any trouble? Oh well, I was starving. Damn I forgot my wallet in the car. As the elevator came back to the lobby I was meet by a Detective, "Hey I've been looking for you. The informant has a cold and you can't be polygraphed if you have any illness. So you're up, kid."

If you've never been polygraphed it's a trip. First you know all the questions ahead of time, so there is time for the questions to marinate on your long term memory. Next you are hooked up to monitors for sweat, blood pressure, breathing, movement, and you're recorded on camera.

After each question you have to wait about ten seconds to record your reaction. For ten seconds you can't move, or breath weird (hard to do when you're thinking about breathing).

I'll tell you I passed. But at the same time I now know polygraph is not a science. There were questions that I should have shown activity on, but I didn't. Then I supposedly showed activity on Marijuana questions. "Yeah, bullshit I've never used Marijuana in my life." The next five minutes of silents were finally interrupted by the administrator, "OK, good enough for me. You passed."

My panel interview is tomorrow.

Funny side note; Daniel had the same polygraph administrator as I did, and he was also "showing activity on Marijuana," but the guy didn't pass him. So he's out. And Chris got the boot after they looked at his PIQ. Hard times.