Am I a bad person if the picture of someone in the CIA crying is funny to me? Not out of malice or anything. It's just something I didn't know they did.

Do they also have little "Hang in there!" posters on the wall, too?

Not a bad person, just lacking in wisdom.

It's a bureaucracy like any other.

The movie Spy (2015) is probably the most accurate, realistic version of the CIA in cinema, replete with celebratory cakes for supervisors' birthdays and crumbling infrastructure due to insufficient funding.

Not bad, just as misinformed as most folks out there about the process and requirements.

National Security is a PITA, full of cutthroat sociopaths who would eat the SV VC-types for breakfast. That is a compliment, because the work they do is broadly dark and grimly necessary, at least at the levels of global geopolitics a lot of them are expected to operate at. I washed out in contracting for much the same reason this person kept "failing" polygraphs: honesty to the point of external perceptions of naivety. The types who excel in these sectors see folks like us as doormats or tissues, and react poorly when we catch them in the act and demand anything resembling respect because they know we're a threat to the entire establishment if we're allowed to succeed.

The point of polygraphs has always been about control, and folks who resist that sort of control are incidentally highlighting themselves as being uncontrollable to power alone. The books the author links are excellent starting points for understanding the true function of a polygraph, and why more places are outlawing them as a means of trying to diversify a deeply broken and hostile security apparatus by preventing it from being a "blind fools and sociopaths-only" club.

I would use this information to reflect.