DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL (U) Sitting in the SOO's Chair FROM: NSOC Senior Operations Officer Run Date: 11/07/2003 (S//SI) Where might the Director Central Intelligence, George SERIES: Tenet, call to get the latest information on happenings in the (U) A Day in the Life of... world? NSOC, of course. Who answers the phone in NSOC? I do. I am a Senior Operations Officer or SOO. The SOO is the Director NSA's time-sensitive representative. Because the Director can't be 1. Office Manager: on the ops floor, the SOO acts on his behalf determining the Jack-of-All-Trades priority of actions and making critical time-sensitive decisions. As 2. The Life of An Exec exciting and responsibility-laden as this position is, I can honestly 3. Working as a Policy say the best part of this job is the chance to know so much of what Analyst: One is going on at NSA and the extended enterprise - because being a Person's Perspective SOO is not a SID job, it is an Agency job. 4. Data Flow Manager: The Data Fairy? (U//FOUO) During the 10 months that I have served in this 5. Mathematician: An capacity, there have been several tense moments when the lives of Insider's View American citizens as well as warfighters were in danger. Decisions 6. NSA Linguists made by the SOO impact the outcome of those situations. So, 'Panning for Gold' strong decision-making capabilities and the ability to communicate 7. Plenty of Action on effectively are musts. the Action Team 8. On The Collection (S//SI) As routine as it is, "pass down", at the beginning of each (Officer's) Plate shift, is critical to the continuity of operations. If one hasn't 9. Sitting in the SOO's properly prepared one's "relief" there could be serious time lapses Chair while the on-duty SOO figures out what is happening and why, 10. You Can't Keep the impacting the timeliness of the decision making process. Other NSC Waiting!.. A Day critical activities include: in the Life of a GRSOC Analyst Each morning, collect information for the State of the Enterprise (i.e. anything affecting the use of resources, people, ongoing ops in any directorate), which is delivered to DIRNSA Write scripts for the SOO's portion of 15 Minutes Prepare notes for Dr. Cambone, USD (I) Fridays meet with A&P; to alert SOO's to situations that might flare up over the weekend. On any day be prepared for CRITICs, NOIWONs, or JCS exercises.** Direct non-time sensitive actions to appropriate staff organizations. Wednesday listen in on the Campaign update Twice weekly standup with DIR, DDIR, SID and IAD Leadership and Associate Directorate Leadership, the chance to share with the entire Agency. Deal with zillions of phone calls ranging from crank to critical. "Entertain" visitors such as Fox News' Tony Snow. (U//FOUO) There are many advantages to this position. The primary one is that when your 8-hour shift is up you can go home, comfortable and assured that someone else has taken the "con" and is doing the job as well or better than you. There is no need to hang around for an extra 2 or 3 hours to make sure something gets taken to closure. The second advantage that comes to mind is the camaraderie. A bond like no other develops between co-

workers on shift work and besides, we have the best pig-ins! Also being exposed to NSA's successes every day inspires an even greater sense of pride and accomplishment. It is truly a unique and awe-inspiring circumstance. (U//FOUO) Check out the NSOC webpage for further information. **CRITICs are messages designed for the rapid dissemination of critical information. NOIWON=National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officers Network JCS=Joint Chiefs of Staff "(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)." DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108