In case you missed part one:

 http://open.salon.com/blog/oesheepdog/2009/04/10/i_turned_down_the_cia_the_story_of_my_interviews_part_i

After my park bench interview in front of the Nashua, New Hampshire Public Library, I'd come to the conclusion that I shouldn't sit by the phone waiting for it to ring. So I didn't. Imagine my surprise when in early August another CIA employee was on the phone summoning me to an office interview in Boston.

I was summoned to a building not unlike this one and met a man in a two room office that could have doubled as a broom closet. I can't for the life of me remember his first name or where the office was located.

I was greet warmly and got a well detailed briefing on the structure of the CIA and the workings of the Security Department.  I learned about what the job was like, the travel, etc. There wasn't a lot of questions he had for me. What came next was a bit of a surprise.

He wanted me to take a test. Wow, was it a surveillance? No this would be a written test that weekend in the same office building. Plan on spending the whole day. There would be a break for lunch where I could leave the building but would have to be back promptly or I wouldn't be admitted in to the building.

He then made two very interesting comments. "First, don't try to prepare for this test. There is nothing you can do to prepare. Go to a movie the night before and put the test out of your mind. Second, you may find that other people who take the test my have advanced degrees, like Ph. D.s or Masters Degrees. Don't be intimidated by what their education level is. Education has nothing to do with this test."

He then thanked me for my time and reminded me to bring a photo ID to the building that Saturday morning.  In less than an hour I was in and out of that interview

I did take his advise and went to a movie that Friday night. I couldn't tell you what movie I saw, but I also didn't lie awake that night thinking about the tests either.

Test day arrived and I was admitted to the building and to the test area. Did I tell you this was in August? Did I also tell you they turn the air conditioning off on the weekends. Did you know windows don't open in a large office building.

Despite the heat, I went through the most diverse groups of tests I have ever taken. These were nothing like I had taken before. Most memorable, was this test where, and I think this is the best way to describe it, a phony foreign language was created with english translation. This test had you try and fill in the appropriate foreign word in the foreign word sentence. This could have been Vulcan or Klingon for all I knew

No kidding you couldn't study for this test. I just barreled through it as best I could.

There other test that I found fascinating was this spacial analysis test were you had to predict the 6 side of a cube based on a two dimension drawing of six squares.

After a brief interlude for lunch it was back to the world's tallest sauna as the tests continued. Finally after writing another essay, exhausted I left the building for my 2 hour ride back to New Hampshire.

Well, I said to myself, I'll never hear from the CIA again.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

 End of part two.