Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Sally from Santa Fe With an Open Letter to Search Committees.

Note from the moderator:

Sally asked me to pull her post. We sort of frown on this, but we wanted to accede to her request. She did tell us that she felt some of the identifiers in it might make her easier to unmask. She's also posted a comment below.

49 comments:

  1. Oh god yes to 8. So much to 8. Especially if you are going to repeatedly give me bottled water and coffee (and beer!)

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  2. For the most part, I'm with you, Sally. But I think you're responsible for providing your own bottled water if you really need/want it (a bottle which you refill from a water source with which you're comfortable also works). And if proffies at a particular school often eat with students and/or each other in the cafeteria, you might as well sample the cuisine, and the milieu (you'll probably have a bit more time to scout out the more bearable options, and/or learn techniques for smuggling in your own food, if you get and accept an offer. In the meantime, at least the grilled cheese sandwich is non-messy and sustaining).

    I suspect that people will also remind you that the time to ask about salary is when you get an offer, and not before. I tend to agree with you that more openness would serve everyone well, but it can get complicated, especially if you're hoping to negotiate (which can't, of course, happen until an offer is on the table). I think it would be smart for hiring committees to give candidates some idea of the range at the time they issue an invitation for a campus visit, since that can keep everyone from wasting his/her time. I have at least one colleague who received such information at the campus invitation stage, which gave him the opportunity to answer that he was making 10K more at his present job, and decline the visit in a way that left the positive mutual professional impressions developed at the conference interview intact. In that case, openness resulted in a win/win.

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  3. Ditto Cassandra. Plus - 27 degrees? Sounds positively balmy. Clearly you need more interviews at Tuktoyaktuk University.

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  4. 1) We made Dorothy pick you up for a reason. We put up with Dorothy. You're going to have to put up with her too, if we hire you. If you get techy about her now, wait until your office is next to hers. Your ability to put up with Dorothy is a job requirement.

    2)Order your own goddamned drink and don't look to us to provide you guidance. If you have to order first, order some fancy fizzy water and perhaps have a beer later if everyone else is.

    3) The dean has the same damned meeting five times a day this time of year. Tell him or her what department you intend to join and don't get techy about that either. We probably told him. He probably forgot. Get over it.

    4) We eat this swill, too, often enough. We're taking you here because we want you to see our student body and how they live and eat what they eat, just once. To see your reaction. If you complain, you are toast. You don't want to push your own plastic tray? Shall I call a catering service to bring in some caviar and blini for you? Or maybe I should bring your tray to you as you recline on a divan. Eat the swill. Smile. Talk about the students. Because you're so so happy to be here because we are actually in the position to offer you a job, and if you act like you're above eating with the students you will never hear from us again, and we will tell all our friends about you.

    5) It's 27 fucking degrees here an awful lot. Bitching about the weather makes you look like a douche. That faculty member dragging you around to, oh, tell you things about where you want to work, is walking around in that 27 degrees as well. 27 degrees ain't that cold, Spanky.

    6) Sometimes you have to play "let's pretend," kiddo. Because we can't force freshman to come to your presentation, and your presenation may not fit in any of the classes that do have freshmen in them. If you can't handle a room full of academics pretending to be freshmen, you can't handle real freshmen.

    7) The salary becomes your business when we actually offer you the job. If you ask about it, that's what we'll tell you. You don't have the job yet, Curly.

    8) When you have to pee, say "Excuse me, where's the bathroom?" Most adults expect other adults to actually be able to navigate this sort of situation. If you wet yourself because no one asked you if you had to pee, we will definitely take points off.

    9) Get your own fucking bottled water. We drink from the "staph ridden" water fountains all the time. Helps build up the immune system. If you're too much of a lace doily to drink from a fucking water fountain, you don't fucking belong here.

    10) Our borderline personality disorders don't cater to your whims. They let their freak flag fly. Deal with it.

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  5. Stella, I'm pretty sure you're me. Except you're a lot funnier.

    I do think telling people salary range is a good idea, though; preferably on the job ad.

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  6. I usually like Stella, but her apologist bullshit above shows her to be the kind of colleague I could not stand for 5 minutes.

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  7. @Stella

    Go get stuffed. You MUST not give a shit about people coming for campus visits. I bet it's a summery breeze to try to join your special club.

    Sally, I love your list!

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  8. I think Stella needs an adjustment.

    Does anyone know how hard it is to fly in from somewhere and go through this kind of gauntlet. It's often such a clusterfuck of meetings and poorly planned events that any of the kindnesses mentioned in Sally's list would put a school at the top of my list.

    If Stella was my visit coordinator, I'd most certainly stay home.

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  9. Love it Sally!!! We have someone coming in next week - to a cold weather location! - and I've forwarded your funny list to my search committee sisters and brothers. We're definitely going to hope it's YOU that our "Dorothy" picks up!

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  10. I'm going to have to defend building a little time between meetings for things like peeing. The school that gave me someplace to keep my stuff, time between meetings to whiz without having to ask, and a computer to print my boarding pass on went immediately to the top of my list. Yes, it has many other things to recommend it, but between two equally liked institutions it's going to win.

    And as for the driver that barely knows how to get to the airport and back? Dude, I've been that person with guest speakers. I bring my GPS so I don't make a freaking fool of myself. I'll happily loan it to anybody that needs it for similar tasks. The economy means that people fly in to weird 3rd rate airports rather than the two we actually know how to get to in order to save cash. They also are put up in crappier hotels. We make what adjustments we need to in order to make it work!

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  11. I think that #2 should be "Don't order alcoholic drinks when out with a job candidate." That's because they really shouldn't be drinking while interviewing. If you do, they have to chose between two bad options: (1) drinking while interviewing (yes, the dinner or social gathering is still part of the interview) or (2) not joining in the drinking, which makes them look uptight. About the best a candidate can do is not order a drink and joke about wanting to stay sharp.

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  12. I'm in between Stella and her detractors. I'll give you 1-4, 5 for my campus (which is in a Mediterranean clime, so none of us can deal with weather below 50 degrees), and 8. As for 6, you need to deal -- real freshmen can't evaluate your teaching as well as we can. While it's nice to get the information for 7, we don't hire the person who demands to know it on the campus visit, as it often depends on their prior years of experience, number of pubs, presence or absence of other offers, and so on. As to 9, good idea, but don't act all pouty if someone forgets it. 10 is out of the search committee's control.

    Keep in mind that the cards are NOT in your hand, Sally. If you come across in person the way you do on this e-mail, you won't get hired. Hopefully this is just venting and you will appear completely game and eager, just for this one occasion, ready to unleash your entitled diva-dom only once you are hired, but ideally only after tenure.

    Or maybe you're a famous scholar with 3 or 4 field-defining books? In which case, carry on.

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  13. From Sally

    I've asked the moderator to take my post down for a couple of reasons. The main one is probably I was too candid in some of my comments, in that they come from a visit I just made.

    However, I wanted to say this as well. About a month ago someone told me about CM, and ever since I've been an avid reader. Today's was my first post, and I thank those of you who got a little laugh out of the list.

    But, to Stella, congratulations. You made me feel very small. I don't know for sure if that was your goal; I wouldn't think so based on other things you've written here.

    But I guess I erred. I sort of thought this was a place of us vs. them. I just didn't realize I was one of the thems.

    If it's a place where it's okay to attack someone for sharing their misery, maybe I'm not tough enough for it.

    Sally from Santa Fe (not really...)

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  14. I actually do give a shit about people coming for campus visits. I've been on nearly every hiring committee in my department in the past decade or so, and we've always gotten our first choice, who was always the person I supported. I've swayed committee members from the gumdrop unicorns (sexy as they were) and we've been much better off for it. The one time I wasn't on a hiring committee, they hired "teh sexay" lover of bottled water and she did nothing but complain about everything and left the next year.

    I've also been on job interviews myself. And you know, when I came to my current university for my campus visit, people toured me around campus (though it was hot--my campus visit was in May in a southern state), they took me to eat with the students at the cafeteria, they didn't bring me bottled water, I ordered a drink at dinner because I felt like it, I gave a presentation to potential colleagues as if I was supposed to be giving it to sophomores, etc.

    Our "special club" is pretty special, yes. We generally like each other, we don't treat each other with kid gloves, we don't find mixing and eating with the students beneath us, we understand that the dean and president aren't always on-task, we're forbidden to mention salary until we offer the job, we pee when we fucking feel like it, and we don't expect bottled water.

    If you're a gumdrop unicorn, you won't survive here. And we don't want you here. It's kind of my job to keep potential employees that think our food is "swill" and our water is "staph infected" from getting a job here. And I take it very seriously.

    Because, though I complain about individual colleagues and individual students, overall I love my job and we're all in this together.

    People on the job market need to remember that for the most part there are about a hundred people that could do the job at least as well or better than you. Generally, I could throw a dart at the pool of applicants and find someone suitable with proper qualifications. After that, if comes down to who we can stand to be around over the next ten or twenty years.

    If that's not you, you're toast.

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  15. @Sally, well, you touched a nerve with me. I don't intend to make anyone feel small, but from your post it sounded like a lot of people were trying hard to inform you about the university, make you feel comfortable, get you in touch with the students, and be there for your presentation. Seemed to me like you were biting the hand that was trying to feed you. Only a very few people on academic job searches can do that. The rest of us (myself included) aren't that much in demand.

    If you'd cited rudeness, or someone trying to hit on you, or not caring that you got to your plane on time, or no one showing up for your presentation, or any number of other behaviors that are truly out of line (or indicate disinterest in you as a candidate and a person), I would have been very sympathetic. As it is, it seems you were subjected to cafeteria food, tap water, a potential colleague with no sense of direction, and the weather.

    Seriously, my apologies if your feelings are hurt. But if any of your behaviors on that campus visit was reflected in your actual attitude, even a whiff, it's probably not a good thing. And maybe that's a good thing for you to know.

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  16. Yes, the almost always wise ELS nailed it vis a vis Stella.

    Shit, why hasn't she gone and toasted some of the email posts from today? I mean, of course, we could just not be bothered by stupid snowflake email, but we come her to "let it out."

    I think Sally was trying to join in. No need to worry about that anymore I guess.

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  17. This sucks. CM Moderator, you should not have taken the list down. It was funny. I loved it. I wish I'd saved it now.

    And I completely understand Sally's feeling. I mean, we're here to share the misery, right? Job search misery is part of it.

    Sally, hang in there. Change your nickname and post something again. There's always a little hyperbole in the posts, and I thought the one commenter went WAY overboard in telling you that you were wrong for feeling the way you did about a campus visit.

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  18. Thanks, Stell-nikov!

    You've done more to kill the blog than I ever could...

    smooches!

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  19. Truthfully? Yes, I think of course this is a place to vent. But I also think there's a real difference between complaining about people that are in a position to offer you something, and who are only trying to help (but may not be doing that to your satisfaction), and people that are willfully stupid or evil, or liars.

    Mostly what we complain about here are stupid, conniving students, shifty administrators, demanding parents, etc...people that have no call to behave the way they do or think the things they do, or people that should really seriously know better.

    It's hard to watch someone complain about what seem to me to be a series of kindnesses and attempts at concern, punctuated by rides with people that have no sense of direction, and uncooperative weather.

    That's my main problem. Which is why I came down hard. But I will say I probably should not have done it in the way that I did it. A simple "sounds like those people were trying to be nice to you" would have sufficed.

    So, again, I apologize to Sally for going overboard.

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  20. I thought the original list was very funny, and I thought stella's smackdown was very funny too, and I think everyone should stop with the overreactions. It must be all that staph in the water today - though I would have expected us all to be immune by now!

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  21. @Sally: I think "us vs. them" may be a bit harder to define when we're taking about proffies and potential proffies interacting with each other. Also, I think it's clear from the comments that the job search process isn't a picnic for committee members, either. They get to spend their time in cramped hotel rooms while their colleagues are doing far more interesting things at the conference (or staying happily at home); then schedule visits during some of the worst weather of the year in many climes; clear their own calendars for 3 or 4 48-hour periods (and/or coordinate with 6 other people to cover the whole time); all of this while dealing with the beginning of the semester and hoping that the Dean won't cancel the search at the last minute. When a candidate who looked promising at the conference turns out to be more of a whiner than a trooper, that's a lot of lost time and effort. Mind you, I haven't actually been on the other side of the search process yet, but I've watched colleagues and grad school friends do it, and it's not fun. Of course, it's not fun for the candidate, either, but I suspect the candidate who manages to display a "we're all in this together/let's make it work" rather than an "us vs. them" mentality is the one who's more likely to get the job.

    That said, I agree with Will. I enjoyed your post, and would like to see more from you. It's easy enough to change your moniker. No one will know you were once Sally (not) from Santa Fe.

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  22. Also, second klytaimnestra, who posted while I was typing. I enjoyed Stella's comment, too, and thought it was about equally over the top, in the opposite direction, as the original (it's also a handy guide to remembering what the points in the original post were, now that they've been deleted).

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  23. Think of the original post and Stella's comment as the equivalent of a country song and its "answer song": both hyperbolic, both enjoyable, and both containing a grain of truth (with the exchange as a whole adding a few more grains).

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  24. My office is next to the men's room. Yesterday I overheard this:

    Dude 1: I just scored Breakfast Number Two.
    Dude 2: (inaudible) with the candidate?
    Dude 1: Yeah.
    Dude 2: With Alexis? The one with the tits?
    Dude 1: (laughter) Yeah, that one.
    Dude 2: Nice.

    These are adult men discussing the candidate for an academic job position. I wonder if I should go show them my tits? Maybe they'd make me permanent faculty.

    Good luck on those campus visits...

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  25. Reminds me of the time two older males interviewed me in a restaurant. They kept ogling young women walking by and commenting “I’d sure like to make HER my grad student.” There really are worse things a committee can do on an interview than not offer you a pee break. That said, I wish I had made it on to CM in time to see the original posting.

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  26. At least Stella has the balls to leave her opinions up, even when people disagree with her.

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  27. @Prof Glabella - did you take the job? Eww.

    I'm now old enough that the thing I mostly notice about job applicants is how scared they all are. And how young, too, most of them. And usually wearing a jacket they clearly borrowed from someone, and their only tie, which makes them uncomfortable. It makes me feel very maternal; I wish I could help. I wish we could tell candidates, at the very least, that it's okay to wear comfortable clothes.

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  28. @Merely Academic: Nope. It was offered, but I fled screaming from that interview. Eww is right.

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  29. Actually, what I saw was a bunch of people taking turns whacking Stella, too, and I expressed my opinion in that context.

    But hey, just because I don't agree with you, bring out the bad sarcasm, the most dangerous weapon on the internet.

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  30. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  31. Pee Breaks? I interviewed for a job outside academia some years ago when I was a young grad student. They flew me in for 2 interviews. Office A interviewed me in the am and Office B was to interview me in the afternoon. Interview #1 went well and they took me to the cafeteria for lunch. However, the person escorting me had to take off for an emergency and left me alone. He forgot to tell Office B where I was. There were no bathrooms in the cafeteria, but there was a men's room down the hall. However, I could not walk through the building unescorted (they handled government contracts and took security seriously). So there I was, really, REALLY having to pee, but I couldn’t leave the cafeteria to go to the men's room less than 10 feet away!!! I was about to ask a stranger to take me to the bathroom when Office B found me. WHEW

    Office A hired me, but when I reported for my first day I found my job had been eliminated in budget cuts. It went downhill from there...

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  32. I don't mind being told I have balls, or don't, as the case may be. I use that all the time myself. I don't think it's "marginalizing" but that's me. And I can dish it out, as well as take it, so swing away.

    I don't mind hurting someone's feelings if it's warranted, but I guess what I'm questioning after this thread is whether going for the jugular is always warranted, even if a certain issue pushes my buttons. Especially if going for the jugular seems easy and feels good. Maybe it is worth it, if some hapless job seeker thinks twice about letting their discontent with the weather or the cafeteria food show, but maybe not, if the snark just puts people off completely.

    Honestly, if my post keeps just one person on a job interview from complaining about the food, or the dean, or the gps-challenged chauffer, or the weather, or the water, it can't be a bad thing.

    I don't want to scare people off, or hurt people's feelings. But after reading the musings in Sally's post, it struck me that the writer seems to be the epitome of the gumdrop unicorn. The demand for the removal of the original post and the flouncing has only solidified that opinion. People that ask for their posts to be removed are frankly cowards. If there were some identifying features in there, editing might be warranted. But don't be a wuss. If you're sorry for what you posted that's especially a reason to keep it up, to remind you of what not to do next time.

    And if thinking all this and saying it makes people think I'm a curmudgeonly old asshole, well, depending on the situation, it's a fair cop.

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  33. "7) The salary becomes your business when we actually offer you the job. If you ask about it, that's what we'll tell you. You don't have the job yet, Curly.
    "

    I hate this attitude. (Yes, I do recognize it's the norm in America.) I just don't get it. It's such a ludicrous waste of time to go through this long, laborious process only to discover that there was never the slightest chance in hell of agreement simply because there was never any overlap between what might be offered as a salary and what might be accepted.

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  34. God do I love this comment thread. I hope it stays at the top of the page forever, because you people are absolutely priceless.

    You will be out of bizness by the next time Sad Sack Sally gets the stones to try a post again.

    Goodbye suckas.

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  35. Let's keep in mind that Stella generally rocks, offered a thoughtful and decent apology, and had some good advice to give, tone notwithstanding. But with that said, Sally, come back as someone else. I did, because the category of person I belonged to (not me individually) kept being snarked at and it hurt. There wasn't enough distance between me and my persona, and I was taking things too personally. This way, I can be part of it without putting my whole self on the line, all puns intended.

    And yes, it SUCKS being a job candidate, but yes, you do have to play the game and endure discomfort because nobody can read your mind. We do our best on search committees, but sometimes the details aren't perfect. You'll be on the other side someday and see how embarrassing it is to screw up with a candidate.

    In the meantime, anonymous keeps bidding us goodbye, but never leaving. What a bore.

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  36. @Frog and Toad
    maybe it's "anonymous(not Jim)" ?

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  37. I walk away for a day and the place totally collapses....

    Sally, if you don't get the job, post your comments over at Academic Jobs Wiki. Can't hurt, but I would wait a few months.

    Anonymous, go back to fighting Scientology and if you're really Tim(not Jim), stop putting roofies in people's drinks.

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  38. Stella,

    please don't stop going for the jugular. I'll probably be upset when it's me you go for, but it will still be worth it. I'd hate to see you lose your edge.

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  39. I'm so sad I missed all this! Stella, your post was hilarious! And Sally, I know how it feels to be the target of online snark (not here....at least yet, but elsewhere). It does sting, but it's 'all part of the experience.' You just have to get over it. I don't personally think you even need to change your name, but go ahead and do it if you like.

    Just realize that snark is what makes this site fun, and the people you are complaining about are the "them" --- and they just might take you on! That should not really be a surprise!

    I agree that Stella gave some good pointers though, in a funny and over the top way, and having been on a couple of search committees lately, I have to say that if your goal is to get an offer (as I have to suppose it is) then you should read her post again with a more open mind.

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  40. Like Strel, I go away for a couple of days and the whole edifice crumbles.

    Let's just say that searches are emotionally fraught on both sides of the table. Reading the wiki suggests that candidates have a lot of incredibly unrealistic expectations about how they think they should be treated. In other professions you send your resume off into the void, and hope that someday you might hear back from someone. Academic job seekers seem to believe that their CV and cover letter should be treated with the reverence normally accorded to rare artifacts from a lost civilization. Likewise, they want their campus visits to be celebrations of their awesomeness, when the fact is that the people who organize this stuff are teaching their full load, dealing with all their mundane shit, and also trying to get you from place to place on a pretty tight schedule. So raise your hand and ask for a potty break. No one will think any less of you for having bodily functions.

    On the hiring side of things, every search is a new and exciting adventure in colleague madness. The members of the committee do their best to come up with a slate of finalists who are a good fit for the position and the department, while every one else in the department second-guesses them to no end. It's like some never-ending road trip with a rotating cast of backseat drivers from hades. By the time campus visits roll around, you just want it to end, and it becomes easy to overlook the social graces. Being on a search is the single worst service assignment there is. Everyone else in the department hates you for the duration and you don't even get paid for it.

    And as to why the person who can't find the airport picks you up? That person might be the only person in the department who isn't teaching/picking up the kids from day care/in a meeting/or whatever at that particular moment. It ain't personal. But I will say that my favorite campus visits have been the ones where they send a car service to pick me up. That trip from the airport and the one going back the other way are the two most awkward moments in the process.

    So to the Sallies out there, don't make it all about you, because it isn't. And it probably isn't good for your long-term mental health to have your sense of self so bound up in a process over which you have virtually no control. Focus on the parts you can control, and let the rest go. You'll be better for it, and probably get more jobs too.

    And to the committee members. Take a deep breath and slow the fuck down. it will all be over soon, and whatever happens, most of your colleagues will forget why they thought this was the most important thing in the universe and why you are the most evil person in it pretty much the second it all ends.

    Unless of course the search fails, which leads to bonus periods of anger and recrimination.

    p.s. I thought Stella's response was funny. I don't get all the whinging.

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  41. I don't get how people are now acting concerned that Sally might actually ACT in the way her funny post suggested. Hyperbole, right?

    Do we think Strelnikov is actually whipping and shooting his students all the time? Well, maybe he is, but I don't leap to that conclusion.

    I thought Sally's request that they build time in her schedule to allow her a bathroom break was hysterical. I've been scheduled so tightly and passed off to so many different people, that there wasn't time for a bathroom break.

    "Uh, the DEAN is waiting already!!!!!" So, yes, some awareness on the part of the committee would be nice.

    And as for touring the campus at 27 degrees, or 17, or 7, committees should have a little awareness about that as well. I showed up in Kansas in 1996 for an interview, pregnant (took a train), swollen ankles, lumbering from the cab to the college, and the second thing on my schedule was a 45 minute hike around campus with 3 grad students who looked like they just finished Outward Bound.

    When I said to the campus visit coordinator, "Uh, it's a little hard for me to get around too quickly," he replied, "Oh, but it's flat. You'll be fine."

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  42. Shit, I miss the fun again. It sounds like Sally's list was pretty funny but I'd choose Team Stella.

    If you're going to write one of these, "Dear ..., let me explain you to do your job better because you're doing it wrong" letters, be prepared for a little pushback. That's how this thing works. Be lucky you didn't get a front page post devoted to your takedown.

    @Blackdog: That's standard conversation. Men are pigs.

    @Glabella: That's disgusting. They are losers.

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  43. I don't get why people don't get how bitchy Stella's response was to a very funny post that poked fun at how hard the search process can be on a candidate.

    Seriously, is that what we can't vent about here? Anything else goes, but for God's sake don't skewer search committees?

    And, please, nobody could really think Sally would ever REFUSE to eat at the student cafeteria, or sit down in the snow when she realized she had to tour the campus in 27 degrees.

    JOKES, people. If we're going to parse this posts and categorize them as real, then we'll have to lock up some people in the process.

    How come nobody told Stella that it would be poor form to call here students "fucktards," or refer to them in real life as "slack jawed." Seriously, Stella, THAT might be a bad idea!

    Good grief.

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  44. Srsly, this thread is a gift that keeps giving.

    Please, God, let's have some more discussion about it.

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  45. You know what would be great?
    Think about Sally's advice as from one search committee to another. There would have been ZERO bitching then. Well, probably.

    I think most of her complaints are things that committees might have to put on a candidate sometimes, but can certainly contextualize.

    "We're going to eat lunch in the cafeteria. A lot of our faculty eat there because we think it's good to socialize with people from other departments and it helps you find people to do interdepartmental and interdisciplinary projects with." Yep, I've said that to candidates here.

    Unfortunately, I heard the following at another instiution about a candidate coming in to visit:

    "Oh, just take them to the student union. It's cheap and they aren't our top pick anyway."

    I think it's important to contextualize the things you've decided to show your candidate.

    Hiking them all over campus? "Yeah, faculty parking is pretty far away from most of our classrooms so we mostly walk here. But if you have a disability it's really easy to get a special pass."

    No actual freshmen in the freshman lecture? "We don't want to disturb them in their actual classes by having a lot of different teachers in, but you really can teach to that level during your demo." Fabulous. I truthfully feel weird walking into somebody's class for a day and taking over. I sure as hell wouldn't want my class disturbed that way.

    We can't change the things that the job search asks us to do, but we CAN change the way that we present them (says the girl who is on the market while helping run the Assistant Dean search here!)

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  46. Bottled water? "Oh, we've signed an environmental pledge not to buy the stuff. But I fixed you a special silver flask of vodka!"

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  47. lol YES! "here's your complimentary flask of bourbon" would totally make me want to stay and live there forever. That might get me to hug that search committee. :)

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  48. Sorry I missed Sally's list, but I have one piece of advice for Sally, if you can't take a colleague like Stella, ours is affectionately known as Miss Scratch-and-Hiss, you need to find another profession.

    Also, while I thought Stella’s, presentation a bit catty, I generally agree that job candidates need to show that they are team players...well accept for the bit about water fountains, I have always found even the thought of drinking from them absolutely gross. Sorry Stella I do not want to share that much with my colleagues.
    Good luck Sally!

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