I had both, Amazon and as a defense contractor. Nothing ever would have prohibited me from talking about how work was, what I worked on was for obvious reasons easier at Amazon. But even in the contractor job it was no problem saying I worked on Integrated Logistics Support on aircraft. This was a far cry from being CIA, so.
That being said, I told people the comment thing more than once. Always to people I know and people that know me well enough to get the meaning. In other cases I just said I won't answer certain questions. Much different than the bo comment trope.
It's sometimes funny how those things worth with the government. I was talking to an acquaintance who worked at a company that built satellites for NRO/NSA & Friends. He could tell me things like "we had a great test of the cryocoolers last week and some of our design tweaks really improved the performance. On the other hand he wouldn't tell me what the satellite was for or even its name.
A coworker of mine went to a foreign country once on a business trip. When he asked what he could tell his wife about his trip, the guidance he got was "You can tell her either where you're traveling or why you're traveling. Not both."
That being said, I told people the comment thing more than once. Always to people I know and people that know me well enough to get the meaning. In other cases I just said I won't answer certain questions. Much different than the bo comment trope.