# Did this college fail to negotiate in good faith or did this applicant deserve what she got? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 18, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031 "2014-03-18T22:10:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/181 "2014-03-20T15:05:07Z")
[Fixed link](http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/2014/03/w-speaks-about-her-pfo-fo.html). ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/182 "2014-03-20T15:05:28Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Several posts from academics have already stated that accommodations similar to these are not unusual in academia. > > Now this particular combination of accommodations in this particular context might not have been realistic, but I think that EVEN W herself has said that she knew that going in. > Her whole point was that she was taught – especially since she already had the job offer in hand – that it “doesn’t hurt to ask” and if you look at the tone if the E-mail message, it doesn’t look like she’s making “demands” at all. > > It’s impossible to say that there are even any unrealistic expectations here because there’s no evidence that she expected to get any of them. (Except for the maternity leave – she was already told unofficially that she would likely get it – she just was trying to make it official.) > > Her _sole_ expectation here – I seems to me – is that “it doesn’t hurt to ask” – and, frankly, I don’t see why she should be wrong about that. Particularly in an atmosphere in which professional women are being beaten on the head with the idea that the gender gap is because women fail to ask for what they want. > > Going from here to “entitled” really can’t be justified from what we know about the situation. The tone comes through loud and clear. If she had asked in more appropriate way, and acknowledged that the requests were unusual she might have received more consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/183 "2014-03-20T15:06:44Z")
She writes “between the institution myself” rather than “between the institution and me.” I would have rescinded the offer based on that alone. (Maybe this is why I don’t have a tenure-track job…) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/184 "2014-03-20T15:07:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I think the whole controversy here is exactly because withdrawing the offer instead of simply saying “no” is what seems extraordinary. It doesn’t seem to be standard procedure at all. Sure. I don’t necessarily think that suggests sexism so much as somebody who’s had it with what they perceive to be spoiled/entitled graduate students. I suspect most of the commentators here taking glee in this pulled offer would respond the same way if the author had been a male. But that’s just my speculation. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/185 "2014-03-20T15:10:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > [Fixed link](http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/2014/03/w-speaks-about-her-pfo-fo.html). Link does not work. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/186 "2014-03-20T15:11:49Z")
[Try this one](http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/2014/03/w-speaks-about-her-pfo-fo.html). ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/187 "2014-03-20T15:13:17Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Let’s turn this thread into something constructive. Hiring-type people: where’s the line between a reasonable request over and above the salary offered and “yeah, buddy, and here’s your company spaceship key”? Its so variable that there isn’t one. First you need to know your company - Amazon’s salary cap is really low (their employees make their money on bonuses), so countering with a significantly higher salary and you didn’t research the company. Know your worth - the worst ones I had were in the late 1990s, where people with MCSEs and no experience thought they were worth $100k a year because they’d read somewhere MCSEs could make that (yeah, a VERY FEW of them could, when they had much more experience than YOU DO - I won’t even manage to make that up in billing - I was a consultant manager). Know what is really important to you - if you can’t work for a company that won’t let you work from home when the kids are sick, make that part of the deal - but you need to be ready to walk - or have them pull the offer. Pulling an offer is rare - more often I’ve seen people torpedo themselves in interviews - one guy wanted us to relocate him from California to New York - the job was in New York or Minnesota and he was willing to be relocated to New York, but not Minnesota. No second interview - I have to pay you more to live in New York and most of the team is in Minnesota - I’d TAKE someone in the New York office if a New Yorker applied and was the best fit. Another wanted to work from home so she wouldn’t need to pay for daycare - yeah, that doesn’t work for me…I’ve had my own toddlers - you won’t get a lot done workwise when they are scaling the kitchen appliances. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/188 "2014-03-20T15:15:54Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > The tone comes through loud and clear. If she had asked in more appropriate way, and acknowledged that the requests were unusual she might have received more consideration. And none of this is stuff you are adding from your own biases and prejudices and point of view? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/189 "2014-03-20T15:21:00Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Oh, I didn’t realize this (perhaps it’s linked to earlier in this thread), but [here’s W’s follow-up](http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/2014/03/w-speaks-about-her-pfo-fo.html) of her email. It seems pretty reasonable to me, and exactly what I read and felt she was going for in that email. She’s not helping her case. Her counter offer was one of minimal effort. She was applying for a job, not a paid vacation. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/190 "2014-03-20T15:21:31Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And none of this is stuff you are adding from your own biases and prejudices and point of view? Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/191 "2014-03-20T15:27:04Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Sure. I don’t necessarily think that suggests sexism so much as somebody who’s had it with w **hat they perceive to be spoiled/entitled graduate students.** I suspect most of the commentators here taking glee in this pulled offer would respond the same way if the author had been a male. But that’s just my speculation. This is a big source of the disconnect here. Grad students are spoiled and entitled in the popular imagination, so the world at large imagines that everyone else who deals with them must think this way, too. There are spoiled and entitled people everywhere, sure, so no profession is immune. But for the most part grad students make no money, do vast amounts of labor for which they are minimally (or completely un-) compensated, are exposed quite regularly to popular contempt, and are grateful when they get two packs of ramen instead of one. So I suspect you are right, people would still cheer if it were a man, too. Man or woman, all recent PhDs are expected to know that they are pretty worthless. Most grad students have been hearing this for quite a long time before they finish their degrees. It usually sinks in. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/192 "2014-03-20T15:28:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > She’s not helping her case. Her counter offer was one of minimal effort. She was applying for a job, not a paid vacation. Like I said, it reads pretty reasonable to me. I don’t get the sense she expected all or any of that stuff. Now, I’m not saying that’s how _I_ personally would go into a negotiation, but I get a sense people are injecting her neutral-toned letter with their own biases. I’m willing to give her the benefit of a doubt and read the letter with a “can’t hurt to ask” tone rather than “entitled graduate” tone. Then again, in negotiating, you do have to be aware that your tone can be misconstrued and you should be careful not to unintentionally piss the other party off. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/193 "2014-03-20T15:31:33Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > This is a big source of the disconnect here. Grad students are spoiled and entitled in the popular imagination, so the world at large imagines that everyone else who deals with them must think this way, too. There are spoiled and entitled people everywhere, sure, so no profession is immune. But for the most part grad students make no money, do vast amounts of labor for which they are minimally (or completely un-) compensated, are exposed quite regularly to popular contempt, and are grateful when they get two packs of ramen instead of one. > > So I suspect you are right, people would still cheer if it were a man, too. Man or woman, all recent PhDs are expected to know that they are pretty worthless. Most grad students have been hearing this for quite a long time before they finish their degrees. It usually sinks in. Anyone who would actually take a job in philosophy, who has no higher ambition than that, should be ready for the derision usually heaped upon the holders of such positions. It goes with the territory. I have a BA in philosophy, and that’s really all I want. [http://100rsns.blogspot.com/](http://100rsns.blogspot.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/194 "2014-03-20T15:31:56Z")
I read W’s letter to my wife, who teaches at a college similar to Nazareth in many ways, has two former colleagues who have gone on to work there (not in the philosophy department), and briefly considered applying there at one point. Her reactions, before I read the response from Nazareth: \*Eye-rolling at the stuff about delaying the start date for a year. \*There’s something wrong with the tone. Those sound like demands, not requests. \*It sounds like she has no interest in actually being a teacher. \*How could she possibly have spent a day and a half talking to people at the college and not understand on any level that this is fundamentally a teaching college, not a research institution? \*She’d be a terrible colleague. If she has no more than three new preps a year, then someone else is probably going to have to have five. \*Philosophy professors are not known for having good people skills. When I read the response, she said, “That’s exactly what I would have done.” When I mentioned some of the things that have come up in this thread, her responses: \*More likely clueless than entitled. \*Possibly the victim of bad advice–but possibly rejected advice and decided she’d do it her own way. \*It’s hard to imagine that a man would have been dealt with any differently. (She does think that a simple request for more money might be met with a little more tolerance from a man than from a woman, but adds that this conflict seems only marginally about money; it is mostly about teaching responsibilities and general fit.) I’ll add one more thing of my own, based on having served on a couple of (non-college) search committees. I bet there was a split among the committee about which candidate to hire, with some people saying “She’s not interested in teaching, and she doesn’t GET this place,” while others said “Yes, but she’s brilliant, and she’s got great recommendations and an interesting background”–the second group won the battle, but when the letter came in they realized how wrong they’d been. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/195 "2014-03-20T15:32:47Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Like I said, it reads pretty reasonable to me. I don’t get the sense she expected all or any of that stuff. Now, I’m not saying that’s how _I_ personally would go into a negotiation, but I get a sense people are injecting her neutral-toned letter with their own biases. I’m willing to give her the benefit of a doubt and read the letter with a “can’t hurt to ask” tone rather than “entitled graduate” tone. > > Then again, in negotiating, you do have to be aware that your tone can be misconstrued and you should be careful not to unintentionally piss the other party off. Precisely, and that’s what I said. She \*seems \*to have a bad case of ego and entitlement, and that’s what matters. She should have gone out of her way to make it clear that these were not conditions. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/196 "2014-03-20T15:34:50Z")
I think the bottom line is “It can’t hurt to ask” isn’t a truism. It absolutely can hurt to ask, depending on the entirety of what you’re asking for and who (or the nature of the institution) you’re asking. I get absolutely no bead of entitlement from her email and I’ve been on a lot of search committees. What I get is naiveté, and even if she should have known better she may have gotten poor advice that she trusted. Grad schools do not prepare you very well for applying to jobs outside of the typical R1 TT faculty position. Individually each request can be justified. At an R1 university all of them would be probably fine. The advice she received may have been solid for that, but was very poor for the place she as applying to. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/197 "2014-03-20T15:37:37Z")
I guess one lesson that should be learned from this is if you are going to shoot for the sky in your negotiations, make sure to do so in person. It could be that if she had had a face-to-face meeting with the chair of the hiring committee, he/she would have been able to pick up the nuances that are not apparent in an email. They would have seen that she truly was enthusiatic about the offer and quite serious about working there. Also, it’s harder to rescind an offer to someone who is sitting in your office, overnight bag in tow. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/198 "2014-03-20T15:42:31Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Those are all issues before you get the job offer. Once they’ve offered you the job, the “consequences” should be no more than “we cannot accommodate these terms – you’ll have to make your decision based on what we’ve already offered.” I’m curious as to why you believe that withdrawing an offer is inappropriate. If a counter offer is so out of line with the way your business/school/agency operates, isn’t it better to put a stop to the train wreck before it begins? Or should you hire the person, knowing that it likely won’t work out, and being forced to: 1) fire the person in a short while leaving them unemployed, 2) scramble to find a replacement, and 3) wasting all of the start up costs of hiring the person? If young women are being taught to “be more aggressive in negotiations” then they should also be taught how to do it properly. In any negotiation, a person needs to know their “opponent” AND themselves and the positions and strengths of each. Further, it’s not always a company saying “How dare she be so uppity!” Many times the simple request shows that a person is totally unfit for the organization. For example, if I am offered a job flipping burgers at McDonalds for minimum wage, and I counter with a request for $14/hr, health insurance fully paid, and 2 weeks paid vacation per year, none of these are per se unreasonable requests. But wouldn’t the hiring manager see that I have seriously misjudged the nature of burger flipping and the salary and benefits which go along with it? Can’t he or she see that I won’t be happy in the job if I accept a “minimum wage only, take it or leave it” demand? If the hiring manager can see that, why hire me on the original terms? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/199 "2014-03-20T15:47:08Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Anyone who would actually take a job in philosophy, who has no higher ambition than that, should be ready for the derision usually heaped upon the holders of such positions. It goes with the territory. > > I have a BA in philosophy, and that’s really all I want. > > [http://100rsns.blogspot.com/](http://100rsns.blogspot.com/) Derision of academia and grad students, assertion that you “work in philosophy,” proud holder of only a BA, obligatory link to 100 reasons…all of this can only mean one thing. Your GRE’s weren’t high enough to get you into a real program and the rest is just sour grapes. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031/200 "2014-03-20T15:48:42Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Precisely, and that’s what I said. She \*seems \*to have a bad case of ego and entitlement, and that’s what matters. She should have gone out of her way to make it clear that these were not conditions. OK, I mostly agree with that (I don’t think it seems to portray ego or entitlement, but it doesn’t matter as it can be construed that way). But I definitely agree with the last sentence. I don’t fault the college for pulling their offer–I think that’s well within their right (although it appears to be unusual, reading this thread). I just object to the characterization of her letter as a list of demands. All in all, this could have been handled more gracefully all around. This is the type of thing that, as other commentators said, would have been much better handled by the applicant in person rather than via text communication, given the problem of a neutral business-like tone being construed as demanding or aggressive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-college-fail-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-or-did-this-applicant-deserve-what-she-got/684031.md?page=11)