I mentioned one on here where I had to spend the day obsessing about a woman present whose husband killed himself, but my worst was probably at a university that will remain nameless; I’ll just allow it’s a major research university in Alabama about 50 miles from Montgomery and most famous for its football team, and coincidentally home of the world’s biggest bird cage (home to an eagle in times of peace and war). It was scheduled for the Monday after Thanksgiving when the weather was brisk but not really a tiger.
For those who’ve never had the joy of an academic interview, they begin the night before and they last all frigging day and you go before committee after committee after committee and there’s always a skinny bald guy and a woman with a goiter present for at least three of them and one of them (the bald guy or the woman or the goiter) is named Sam but you’ve long forgotten which by noon. They’re grueling.
Anyway, I arrived at the hotel about 6 pm on a Sunday night. PER THEIR INSTRUCTION, I called the head of the search committee, an old fart who referred to himself as “the resident curmudgeon” because he thinks that phrase is synonymous with negative old asshole. He was to meet and take me to dinner- this wasn’t a courtesy but a standard part of the interview, one I’d frankly rather skip. In any case, he and his supervisor, who would be my supervisor if I got the job, met me to take me to dinner. The entire way there and through the meal he talks about the monumental imposition of having to do this because “I have family here for Thanksgiving”. At one point I volunteered that I wasn’t the person who scheduled the interview for tonight, to which he responded “I know, but the person who did didn’t clear it with me”, a jab at his supervisor, a humorless Nancy Grace type who told him “You were the only person I thought would be free”. Made me feel really welcome already, especially when she volunteered “I have family here too but I’m here for the candidate dinner and not complaining!”
I mentioned that by coincidence this was the same weekend when my family celebrated Thanksgiving and I’d left them to be here. I was very polite but the “get over it” irony fell on deaf ears.
The next day it gets worse. Curmudgeonhole shows me around the library, introducing me to an army of unsmiling and disinterested people and stopping to complain about this or that new policy or employee. The difference between Schindler’s List and the Nancy Grace woman is that the former had a couple of scenes with humor and warmth- she not only doesn’t make humor, she doesn’t like it. I know this because she said she didn’t like it, this during my presentation when I’d made an ad-lib about something or other. (I give constant bibliographic instruction [BI] presentations in my job- for those not in the know, a BI is a lecture on how to use library information sources- it can be one of the most boring and dead subjects on earth- push this button and click that box to limit it to full text and the asterix will truncate the worl dadj aoifj aoij doijf aoijd f-
except when I teach it. I’m very proud of the fact I’ve been called “The Elvis of Bibliographic Instruction”. I say with no embarrassment or shame that I use humor, theatrics, odd bits of trivia, and anything else to keep attention and make it interesting, because if I’m bored the students are going to be comatose and I learned a long time ago that they’re never going to remember which buttons you pushed anyway, but they WILL remember the truly important things such as the difference in scholarly v. popular periodicals, the availability of Interlibrary Loan, what a reference librarian does, what types of things are available, etc.- the rest they can get from handouts and online tutorials when they need it because until they need it they don’t care and aren’t listening- but they listen to me.
Sorry for the aside above, but it’s relevant, because when asked my philosophy of BI I mentioned a variation on it. Nancy Grace Woman: “I prefer that we remain businesslike and use scripts to standardize.” I couldn’t disagree more; I was actually rather restrained for me during my presentation- I didn’t go into an imitation of a Pentecostal minister while explaining Boolean and I didn’t imitate Don Corleone when discussing Interlibrary Loan, both of which I’ve done before- but being told “no personality please, we’re librarians” was already infuriating to me when I have gotten RAVES from both faculty and students (I had a problem at the U of AL with professors going over my head to make sure that “only he teaches my classes their BI sessions from now on” which MAJORLY pissed off the person assigned to that department- but Nancy Grace Woman is a “That’s the way I see it so that’s the way it is” folks and since she has no humor or warmth she doesn’t believe it serves a useful purpose in others.
But, while a bit irritated already, I’m still interested in the job because it’s less than an hour from Montgomery where I was being summoned back due to my mother’s failing health, and it paid extremely well (about $8,000 more than I was making at the time), and I’ve won over bitches before, so I went on with it. Until the Reference & Instruction committee interview.
That’s when she explained what my job would be and what she expected. “I want somebody who will take our BI to a new level in making it reach our students…what would you do?” Well, that I can buy, and I’d recommend this and that and blah and yadda. She actually liked my answer and said “That’s good. That I like. Instruction has really suffered here in the last year which is why I want the best person for this position. Stuart’s been overseeing it since the last coordinator left and he hasn’t done near as much with it as I’d like. In fact he’s hardly done anything with it at all.”
This offended me for two major reasons. One is, I don’t know Stuart- and now you’ve flavored my opinion of him before I even get to know him, which is dirty pool. More offensive to me than that is that Stuart is in the fucking room and at this fucking table… bitch.
I look at Stuart who’s seething but keeping it professional. I ask this question: “Has Stuart been overseeing instruction instead of his regular duties or in addition to his regular duties?” Stuart (I call him that because it’s not his name) looks at me and says “Thank you! I have been overseeing it in addition to my other duties and I just don’t have time to do two full time jobs and do them both well.”
Now let me explain what happened here for those not familiar with Dixie Bushido:
She has made a serious faux pas- you never criticize somebody in front of others. It’s a very grievous fault. But, perhaps it was unintentional- we’ve all said things that sound worse than intended, or even said things unthinkingly that we only realize after we vocalize it, “damn, that was offensive… even if true”. Now what I have done, with Stuart’s aide, is brokered a diplomatic resolution- I have said to her without saying it 'You know you have punctured the silky skin of etiquette, I know you punctured it, so does Stuart… but I have repaired it with the needle and thread of tact, and now you have the option of pretending it did not happen- a very delicate apology would be nice, I would recommend “I’m sorry if that sounded a bit harsh, but my point is that we need somebody whose main responsibility this is…” and all will be salved and solved.
What she says is “I know it’s in addition to his regular duties, but I still think he could have done more. And what I want in a candidate is adjfoa ajdo foia oa doij apoij dfoa adfja pdfj ao asfj g”
I literally didn’t comprehend most of what she said immediately afterward. Ironically she seemed to be on my side at this point, but all I could think of was “What a rude and insensitive bitch! If she’s like this when presumably she’s on her best behavior, what the fuck is she like to work for on a term’s end Thursday when she’s being pulled 14 ways and her kid needs braces and you’ve displeased her?” and all I thought of for the rest of the interview, literally, was “Should I get up and leave now with a curt ‘Thank you but I withdraw my application’, or should I finish the interview and then send an email withdrawing my application when I get back to Georgia?” I opted for the latter as academia is small and inbred and to leave in mid interview might be unwisely offensive.
Anyway, I’ve since heard it confirmed that “the woman is a bitch”.