While I was in the army I had to take a polygraph test in order to do one of my jobs at one of my duty stations.
I had heard some awful things about the polygraph before I went. I had heard that people had been strapped to the thing for hours on end only to be told that they had failed and that they would have to come back on another date.
I was pretty nervous going in to take the test. If I didn't pass the test I would stay on "casual" duty. Which means I would spend alot of time mowing lawns and cleaning gas masks.
I went in and met the interviewer. He seemed like a nice enough guy. He sat me down and told me how the polygraph would work. It was really quite different from how I expected it to be. First of all everything would be broken up into groups of 5 questions. He would ask me the first five questions while the machine was turned out and get my responses. He would than ask me to lie intentionally on one of the questions. Then he would go to the machine and then ask me the 5 questions at random. This sounded ok so far, the only bad thing was that I would be hooked up to the machine the whole time.
When you get hooked up to the machien, a strap goes around your chest to measure your heart rate and resperation. You then get 5 little clips on the fingers and thumb of one hand. After you were hooked up the machine was calibrated. It took about 5 minutes or so to calibrate the machine, and I was told to move my arm as little as possible because if my fingers moved around too much, the machine would have to be recalibrated again.
So I'm hooked up to the machine, and he gives me my first 5 question. It was nothing hard. What's my name Where was I was born. Stuff like that. He told me that I was to lie about where I was born. I was to say I was born in Los Angeles. He went back to the machine and we started. He asked me my name. I relied no problem, but after that things went bad. See I sat there and started anticipating the question I would have to lie about. This would get my a little excited so all my measurements would start going weird, and the interviewer couldn't ask me a question until I was relaxed.
Well we struggled through two sets of questions like this, with me getting more and more anxious about when I would have to dileberatly have to lie. "Will it be the next one? It wasn't the last one. I bet it'll be this one!" Finally the interviewer decided that we would throw out the ones I was supposed to lie on as I had shown that I was a horrible liar already.
The next thing happened is that on one of the sets of questions I was asked. "Have you evern stolen government property?" I hesitated at first answering this question. More from embarassment than anything else. When the interviewer asked me what the problem was I told him that I kept thinking of all those little black pens that I had swipped over the years that said, "property of the US Government." The interviewer got a little upset and told me that they didnt count and that just shouldnt think about that when I asnwered the questions.
Things just went down hill from there. Not only DID I think about them, I again started anticipating the question, so it took longer and longer for me to settle down and get asked a quetsion. Finally about 2 1/2 hours into the debacle the interviewer practiclally shouts, "look! you just need to clear your mind!" Getting a little bit upset myself I told him, "look, i'm a fairly intelligent guy. I can't just blank my mind. I've never been able to do it. I'm always thinking about something."
Seeing that I was getting upset. The interviewer turned off the machine and came and sat down next to me. He said, "look, I can tell your no liar. We just need to get through this. I know you haven't done anything wrong. I'm sure you don't cheat on your taxes. You've never cheated on a test have you?" To this I answered, "sure I have." His ears perk up and he says "What?! When?!" incredulously. I told him that I didn't recall, but that I had cheated a couple times on tests in high school, and this guy blows up! "You expect us to give you a clearance and we can't even trust to take a test without cheating!?"
Now I was mad. Who hasn't cheated on some tests in highschool? I'm not talking about cheating on the SAT. I'm not even talking about cheating on a final. I'm talking about cheating on some stupid pop quiz that I wasn't prepared for! So I did what I always do when people piss me off. I lash out without thinking. I asked the guy, "have you ever had a speeding ticket?" He said, "yes, but what does that have to do with anything?" I told him, "how can we expect you to evaluate people for clearances when you can't even follow the freaking speed limit!!!"
I had never seen a person's face turn purple before this point in time. I thought it was just somethine people write in books to try to impress how pissed off someone is at a plot twist. I can now say that it really happens. The interviewer practically jumps out of his chair and storms out of the room.
So here I am. Almost 3 hours into this interview. My left arm going back and forth from fully asleep to pins and needles, and I'm sweating like a pregnant nun at confessional.
The guy return a few minutes later. Walks over to the machine. Takes some notes, and says, "OK. Thats it."
Still pissed off I ask him when I have to come back because I'm sure that I haven't passed. He asks me what I mean because I had, in fact, passed the test. I did one of the smartest things I have ever done in my life (and have tried to continue to do for the rest of my life in situations like this). I said "thank you," shut my trap and left.
To this day I am convinced that they either had the whole thing planned, or that they figured that I was such a spectacularly bad liar that they had nothing to fear from me.