They may not be ‘unheard of’ singly, but asking for *all *of them was a bit much, especially in a smaller institution. That is what most of us are saying. You have to earn some things first, not just make demands for accommodations having done nothing to earn them.
I simply do not hear a tone of flippancy. I’m looking through my contract negotiation emails (I’m a photographer), and I see 530 instances of the phrase “let me know what you think” (in quotes, for an exact match. Some of these instances are duplicates, though, showing up in ccs of emails.) It is not an unusual phrase to use, in my experience, in negotiation, and it’s not something that jumps out as being “flippant” to me, but, rather, I read it as “hey, I’m amenable to conversation about this. I’m not being demanding.” I know this is not the same thing as negotiating a tenure-track job, but the purpose of the phrase is to soften the tone and not have the previous requests come off as demands. How you read flippancy and entitlement into it is beyond me.
“A bit much” is far removed from “dripping with entitlement.” There’s no indication that she believed she was entitled to any of them.
Right. That’s where naïveté comes in, not entitlement.
Are you unfamiliar with the use of understatement for effect, to be polite?
I would say naivete more than entitlement. That being said, the things you mention in your first paragraph have been the subject of much debate in this thread. It’s really not anywhere near as simple or as clear as you would have it be.
(1) Not sure what you mean by “the broader profession”–this is a set of requests for a particular college which is different from some other kinds of colleges. That’s the piece of this that I have the hardest time getting past: W apparently entirely missed the goals and emphasis of this particular college. As others have noted, it sounds like W is more interested in research than in teaching.
(2) Has the college confirmed this? If not, how would we know?
(3) W wasn’t expecting to get ANY of them? Again, how do we know? And there are plenty of people in this thread who have read this as a demand.
(4) I really don’t see how this is germane. Do you blindly follow all the advice you are given? I know I don’t, sometimes to my detriment to be sure, but sometimes not. “W got bad advice” is not a compelling excuse.
BTW, I doubt that W has another job in hand; no evidence, just a belief that the response from Nazareth stung W more than it would’ve if there’d been another place to go (leaking the letter sounds to me more likely a consequence of “they screwed me out of a job” than “how rude! good thing Enormous State University has already offered me a position”).
Anybody else amused by W’s being “flabbergasted at the number of moralizing comments” in response to the posting of the letter? What was the posting, after all, but an attempt to moralize?
Different context. This is for a position as a philosophy professor, tenure track, not a photography session for a motorcycle calendar. The tone is altogether wrong.
‘I would like to propose the following for your kind consideration…blah blah blah’
Something like that. It should be very formal, academic, and polite
More likely you were previously using hyperbole for dramatic effect. Are you familiar with that?
I would truly like to know how many academic hires you’ve been a part of for you to so strongly assert your knowledge in this area. Hires in general, even?
What I keep hearing from people in this thread is that these kinds of accommodations are not uncommon at large research universities, but they’re impractical and unreasonable at small teaching colleges. Hence the indication that she herself, or at least her negotiation tactics, are a bad fit for this job.
Just saw this. Come on, this makes no sense at all.
Also, a subset would be ok at a SLAC, but not necessarily all of them together. That’s where I think she went astray.
It’s called ‘common sense’, ‘courtesy’, ‘respect’, ‘knowing your place’, etc. You are asking someone important for significant concessions (and as mentioned above, unreasonable ones for this institution). How do you do that? In an offhand manner, or formally? You are not asking a vendor to deliver your air conditioner on Tuesday instead of Monday.
Don’t even take the sexist bait. That really makes me :rolleyes:
I think men in academics have a better sense of ‘their place’ in general. Just my impression, though. I have a lot of friends in the academic world.
Knowing your place is such an important part of being a scholar and educator. It’s something women and minorities have a hard time understanding. That’s why we gotta give them a shock every once in a whole to keep them in line.
I was rereading the original demands and I still think SLAC was right
#1. I’ll go with W on this. Everyone negotiates salary unless you are tied to a contracted amount (like public school teachers). Mrs Cad just got offered a job, countered for $10K more to match her current salary and got $8K of it.
#2. Who negotiates this? Answer: no one. Maternity (or the rare paternity) leave is spelled out already in the employee policies. X weeks paid or unpaid under FMLA or whatever. At this point W is coming across as clueless having always been in academia and never in the real world.
#3. WTF?! Maybe someone whose PhD dissertation is considered a seminal work in their field would get this but first-year assistant professor no one has ever heard of? You’re lucky if you get a bathroom key.
#4 Trust me, I fully understand where W is coming from. This year I had 5 new preps (meaning different classes) fall semester and 3 second semester. But she really should have phrased this differently. It comes off as entitled.
#5 Has got to be why SLAC rescinded the offer. I’m finishing up my Ed.D so I admit I’m not really sure of the relevance of postdoc work. I have my doctorate so why am I not done? But I do know postdoc is important for research students so if I’m at SLAC and see that she prefers postdoc to teaching - it is not a good fit and no one will be happy.
And in all fairness, the college did say
and not “Fuck off you entitled bitch!” I think it is clear hat the school recognized that upon further information she was not a good match and took the appropriate action.
Does anyone else have cites of an employer (academic or otherwise) withdrawing a job offer due a negotiation or something similar? Many people are acting like this is unheard of, and it certainly seems unusual to me, given my personal experiences. But I’d be interested to know if this is a rare practice or not.
You get the impression of a pampered daughter of an academic who has little knowledge of the real world. I doubt that W is the daughter of a longshoreman.
I don’t know which I find harder to believe, that you have friends in the academic world or that you have friends at all.
Yes being from a family of longshoremen is a key qualification that fewer and fewer people meet as longshoremen are replaced by robots. It really does deprive our students of an important part of their experience at Nazareth.