Can't tell him about my work

[stopaskingme]

Just that really.
Been seeing a wonderful man for almost 6 months and I see potential in a future together. All is great on that front.
Issue is that I can't tell him exactly what I do for work. All I'm allowed to tell him is that I work for the Civil Service, and they steer the conversation on to something else.
At first he was ok with my Civil Service answers but lately he's been asking more about exactly where I'm based, a work address, emergency contact number and so on. I move around, no fixed work address and he has my family's contact details in the event of any emergency.
How do I get him to stop being so pushy about wanting to know the ins and outs of my work? I've politely asked him to respect my explanation that I'm a Civil Servant but he's like a dog with a bone!

Perhaps (and I'm going from the sublime to the ridiculous here) .. HE has the job with high security clearance and is checking out if you are safe OP .. I'll get my coat.

I really work in pensions and can confirm if you tell people you work in finance and if they ask follow up questions say pensions, they never ask another question.

I had the same… last job was in compliance, if questions about my work went beyond ‘banking’, that was an absolute, guaranteed conversation killer.

oh absolutely

but the pp was saying that they’re both british passports which does t make sense

ah i see

@stopaskingme

"..... I've politely asked him to respect my explanation that I'm a Civil Servant but he's like a dog with a bone!" Because you've piqued his interest with this rather bland statement and you need to be more clear and firm. Tell him you have signed the Official Secrets Act so you can't tell him and you will never tell him because you consider that to be a serious undertaking. You could also tell him even your own family and friends don't know exactly what you do and never ask you because they understand you can't tell them. (One of my friends does highly secret work for the MoD and we all respect that we can never ask her about it. Occasionally, when she says she's travelling for work, we forget and ask her where she's going and then have a "doh!" moment when she silently smiles at us - the "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" moment. 😂)
In his defence, I would say that when women are dating a new man who's being a bit sketchy about details of his life, MNetters will advise them to proceed with caution, so I actually can understand why he's ragging that bone, but you just need to be very clear with him about the limitations of discussion about your work.

@Mummyratbag the dp wouldn't need to ask her anything.
It's done if they are frequently in each other's company.
He may be testing her to see if she's gobby.

I've put threads on here and on Facebook and seen them disappear. It just makes me laugh now.

They are just describing them by their uses - we did the same. “Where’s the American passport?” “The visa in my Iranian passport is expired”. They are both British passports used for travelling to these specific places.

Sorry they’re both British passports but one is used for travelling to America and one for travelling to the Middle East…..I’m not explaining this well

In theory the Official Secrets Act means you're not supposed to tell anybody anything (when I started in the Civil Service, about a hundred years ago, I was told we weren't even supposed to tell anyone what colour the filing cabinets were, as a ludicrous example, though nobody was ever done for that!).

I've had jobs where my name wasn't given out and jobs where I couldn't be contacted during the working day; none of these were high level or particularly sensitive (mostly commercially confidential or GDPR). In my most recent employment, low level in local government, we were allowed to be anonymous because some customers can be difficult - indeed, according to the FOI guidance, the lower grade you are the less public interest there is in knowing who you are, so junior staff are more protected than senior bods who are actually responsible for policy/operations. Obviously the employer knew who had handled the matter, in case of complaints.

In theory the Official Secrets Act means you're not supposed to tell anybody anything

this is true. A friend of mine her son has started working in the local civil service office as an admin assistant. I can’t imagine he’s privy to any state secrets but he’s signed the official secret act and takes it very seriously and won’t discuss work at all. But he’s allowed to say where he works and that he can’t discuss it….which ime people are accepting of.

🤣🤣

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/additional-passports/additional-passports-accessible specifically (horrible English Home Office's not mine)

We can issue either an additional or overlap passport based on customer circumstances when they:

• need to get visas to travel on business
• travel to incompatible countries (countries with political differences which may prevent travel between them two)
• are a frequent traveller

I imagine the second passport option is invaluable if you're one of those people who forgets to check when their passport expires before booking a holiday! As long as they have different expiry dates, of course...

If this was real then you'd be in trouble for posting on a forum alluding to being in MI5/MI6.
Also, your employer would have very set policies and procedures for this which you'd be heavily trained on.

I don’t know my husbands work phone number, and only have a sketchy idea of where exactly he works.
he comes home.
he has a mobile.

frankly it’s a red flag to me that after six months he wants this level of detail.

unless he feels like I do:
if you said this to me I’d be concerned you were a spy (of somesort) and that might make me anxious that I could end up involved in something dangerous, or that I was being lied to.

I’d also presume that you would have a generic work description that you could give people who ask casually.
I know many civil servants, and so is instinctively ask in what capacity you’re working, to get a better sense of what you do.
since civil servants can do loads of different jobs.

if he isn’t satisfied with I’m involved with HR or tech or work within the XYZ department, then I would be more concerned but wanting to know more than civil servant might not be unreasonable or controlling.

Really? When I was working in an SC role in a central government department (not security services but confidential) I wasn’t told I couldn’t talk about normal officey things. Obviously not anything that was confidential but I could certainly talk about office politics, what colour the filing cabinets were, the sort of stuff I did all day in broad terms. I also never “signed the Official Secrets Act” and was told that in fact nobody had for decades - you don’t have to sign it to be covered by its provisions, which we all were.

Just say you work from home or float around sites. What do they expect people to tell partners in these circumstances? There must be a policy. Like you can give an address of room 65b at Caxton House or some other big government office, and it is like a dummy address for your team. With a phone number that just goes to an answering service or diverts to the team without them knowing the real number/location?
Surely it's your employer's responsibility to give you some kind of cover.

Are you going to out with prince Andrew and he checking so he doesn’t make the same mistake again

Read the OP and thought, this is going to be a one-post-only thread. And sure enough... 😃

I literally never found out what my Dad did - I knew he’d signed the OSA so he couldn’t say and that his office was in Covent Garden and that was that.

You didn't know what your husband did or where he worked ..in 27 years? I'd suggest that's unusually disinterested

I did in the 90s 😃

This sounds like when my mum worked for the benefits agency and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone

I believe that unless something "just happens" eg someone accidentally sees or hears something, people are informed that they need to understand that they will be be bound by the Act before taking on a job or a role. So no as I understand it, you don't sign a piece of paper any more but you are given the opportunity to decline.