in which the job-search chapter of our narrator's life comes to a close
I got a job.
Not only that, I got my dream job.
I'm not sure I can adequately explain how stressful the last couple of weeks have been. Let me try for the short version:
I had campus interviews with schools A, B, and C.
Visit A went well; the school wasn't my dream school, and the job wasn't my dream job, but the faculty members were delightful and collegial, and there were some great opportunities for meaningful and innovative teaching. It was a job I saw myself moving on from in three or four years, but still a job where I thought I could be fairly happy for a while.
Visit B was a whole new level of goodness. The school, about which I'd known very little prior to applying, turned out to be a dream school; the job suited my inclinations and experience beautifully; the students were bright and charming and dorky and energetic in all the ways I most love students to be; the sense of intellectual community among the faculty was astonishing; I just liked everyone I met, which given what a misanthrope I can be is nothing short of amazing.
Shortly after getting home from Visit B, I got a job offer from A. I called B to let them know not only that I had an offer but that I would prefer the job at B; they said they had one more campus visit but hoped to make a decision by Friday or Monday (i.e. this past Friday/Monday).
Having visited B, the A job no longer seemed like such a great deal, but a job offer's a job offer, beggars can't be choosers, insert your favorite pessimistic cliché here.
I went off to the conference in Albuquerque, trying not to worry too much about the possibility of contact from B. Got home Saturday night; no phone message. Began to get nervous.
Earlier this week, still waiting for communication from B, I visited C. C was hell. A very pretty hell with rolling hills, well-maintained lawns, and red brick buildings, but still hell. Ten years ago, my issues would have been with the (wealthy, conservative) students; but I realized during the visit that I could, with the right support, regard the students in the light of an interesting (short-term) challenge. No, the problem was the faculty. They complained about the students, spoke disrespectfully about them, catalogued their (real and imagined) shortcomings with a casual viciousness that made me feel literally, physically ill. As I said to renenet: "I would not teach there for love, money, or the promise of eternal salvation."
While at C, I was worrying myself sick about B: sneaking off to check e-mail, calling home to check my messages every chance I got. No joy. I got increasingly more frantic. Meanwhile, after I mentioned that I already had a job offer on my plate, C indicated in some not-terribly-subtle ways that I was their top candidate and that they were going to try to cut their search process short in order to make me a counter-offer (which I'm not sure is legal, frankly). I didn't care. I should probably have said, at that point, "I don't want this job," but I just didn't have the diplomacy to deal with it right then; I was too worried about B, too close to losing my shit completely.
Yesterday morning I checked messages again before leaving for the airport. Still nothing - and that's the point at which I became convinced that B had offered the job to someone else, and that I was going to be stuck with the newly-disappointing A. I kept thinking of all the dumb mistakes I'd made during the campus visit at B, all the ways in which I could have been more polished, more articulate, more adult, more professional, calmer, more capable. I kept thinking about how I could have done better, how I should have prepared more, presented a job talk on a different topic, answered administration-related questions more thoroughly and specifically, offered different syllabi. I spent hours - on planes, in airports - in tears of self-recrimination.
When I got home, I had a message from the chair of the search committee at B, saying she hoped someone would be in touch with me on Thursday. In retrospect, this was a promising sign, but in my state of upset all I could think was that they were going to tell me in person that another candidate had accepted the offer.
At 10:15 this morning, the dean of the Humanities at B called me and offered me the job. My dream job.
Yesterday's fears and anxieties seem silly now. They weren't at the time. On top of the stress and difficulty of holding it together at C, they felt utterly overwhelming. I had trouble sleeping last night, despite several weeks' worth of accumulated exhaustion.
Now... I'm still exhausted, but I'm okay. I'm better than okay. I've been high as a kite all day - accosting people at school to tell them, buttonholing everyone I could find to share the good news.
The job itself is pretty much perfect. I'll be running the Writing Center (undergrad writing tutors - currently only five of them, though one of my eventual responsibilities will be to expand the program), teaching "college writing" (freshling comp) and advanced comp, and regular (though less frequent) literature and women's studies classes. The teaching load is light enough that I will be able to retain the tattered shreds of my sanity and substantial enough that I will have plenty of students to alarm, amuse, scold, cajole, educate, and love.
Already more than half a dozen faculty have e-mailed me to say how happy they am that I'll be joining them - mostly English faculty, but also LGBT faculty from other departments, all offering congratulations, support, help, advice, a place to stay while I hunt for housing, and general friendliness. All of which just confirms my certainty that this is the right place for me.
The best thing, really, is that the students liked me. The head of the search committee wrote: "I should tell you now that the students were very much in your favor and are extremely pleased that you've taken the job." Another colleague-to-be: "I'm sorry we didn't get more of a chance to interact during your visit, but I can tell you that the students were uniformly enthusiastic in their praise of you as a future teacher." To know that the students felt that way, and that their opinion mattered to the faculty... Yeah. This is where I want to be.
So. Yesterday was my thirty-first birthday, and today I got a job.
I'd say my fourth decade is off to a pretty good start.
Not only that, I got my dream job.
I'm not sure I can adequately explain how stressful the last couple of weeks have been. Let me try for the short version:
I had campus interviews with schools A, B, and C.
Visit A went well; the school wasn't my dream school, and the job wasn't my dream job, but the faculty members were delightful and collegial, and there were some great opportunities for meaningful and innovative teaching. It was a job I saw myself moving on from in three or four years, but still a job where I thought I could be fairly happy for a while.
Visit B was a whole new level of goodness. The school, about which I'd known very little prior to applying, turned out to be a dream school; the job suited my inclinations and experience beautifully; the students were bright and charming and dorky and energetic in all the ways I most love students to be; the sense of intellectual community among the faculty was astonishing; I just liked everyone I met, which given what a misanthrope I can be is nothing short of amazing.
Shortly after getting home from Visit B, I got a job offer from A. I called B to let them know not only that I had an offer but that I would prefer the job at B; they said they had one more campus visit but hoped to make a decision by Friday or Monday (i.e. this past Friday/Monday).
Having visited B, the A job no longer seemed like such a great deal, but a job offer's a job offer, beggars can't be choosers, insert your favorite pessimistic cliché here.
I went off to the conference in Albuquerque, trying not to worry too much about the possibility of contact from B. Got home Saturday night; no phone message. Began to get nervous.
Earlier this week, still waiting for communication from B, I visited C. C was hell. A very pretty hell with rolling hills, well-maintained lawns, and red brick buildings, but still hell. Ten years ago, my issues would have been with the (wealthy, conservative) students; but I realized during the visit that I could, with the right support, regard the students in the light of an interesting (short-term) challenge. No, the problem was the faculty. They complained about the students, spoke disrespectfully about them, catalogued their (real and imagined) shortcomings with a casual viciousness that made me feel literally, physically ill. As I said to renenet: "I would not teach there for love, money, or the promise of eternal salvation."
While at C, I was worrying myself sick about B: sneaking off to check e-mail, calling home to check my messages every chance I got. No joy. I got increasingly more frantic. Meanwhile, after I mentioned that I already had a job offer on my plate, C indicated in some not-terribly-subtle ways that I was their top candidate and that they were going to try to cut their search process short in order to make me a counter-offer (which I'm not sure is legal, frankly). I didn't care. I should probably have said, at that point, "I don't want this job," but I just didn't have the diplomacy to deal with it right then; I was too worried about B, too close to losing my shit completely.
Yesterday morning I checked messages again before leaving for the airport. Still nothing - and that's the point at which I became convinced that B had offered the job to someone else, and that I was going to be stuck with the newly-disappointing A. I kept thinking of all the dumb mistakes I'd made during the campus visit at B, all the ways in which I could have been more polished, more articulate, more adult, more professional, calmer, more capable. I kept thinking about how I could have done better, how I should have prepared more, presented a job talk on a different topic, answered administration-related questions more thoroughly and specifically, offered different syllabi. I spent hours - on planes, in airports - in tears of self-recrimination.
When I got home, I had a message from the chair of the search committee at B, saying she hoped someone would be in touch with me on Thursday. In retrospect, this was a promising sign, but in my state of upset all I could think was that they were going to tell me in person that another candidate had accepted the offer.
At 10:15 this morning, the dean of the Humanities at B called me and offered me the job. My dream job.
Yesterday's fears and anxieties seem silly now. They weren't at the time. On top of the stress and difficulty of holding it together at C, they felt utterly overwhelming. I had trouble sleeping last night, despite several weeks' worth of accumulated exhaustion.
Now... I'm still exhausted, but I'm okay. I'm better than okay. I've been high as a kite all day - accosting people at school to tell them, buttonholing everyone I could find to share the good news.
The job itself is pretty much perfect. I'll be running the Writing Center (undergrad writing tutors - currently only five of them, though one of my eventual responsibilities will be to expand the program), teaching "college writing" (freshling comp) and advanced comp, and regular (though less frequent) literature and women's studies classes. The teaching load is light enough that I will be able to retain the tattered shreds of my sanity and substantial enough that I will have plenty of students to alarm, amuse, scold, cajole, educate, and love.
Already more than half a dozen faculty have e-mailed me to say how happy they am that I'll be joining them - mostly English faculty, but also LGBT faculty from other departments, all offering congratulations, support, help, advice, a place to stay while I hunt for housing, and general friendliness. All of which just confirms my certainty that this is the right place for me.
The best thing, really, is that the students liked me. The head of the search committee wrote: "I should tell you now that the students were very much in your favor and are extremely pleased that you've taken the job." Another colleague-to-be: "I'm sorry we didn't get more of a chance to interact during your visit, but I can tell you that the students were uniformly enthusiastic in their praise of you as a future teacher." To know that the students felt that way, and that their opinion mattered to the faculty... Yeah. This is where I want to be.
So. Yesterday was my thirty-first birthday, and today I got a job.
I'd say my fourth decade is off to a pretty good start.