A shitty day . . . I was an internal candidate for a job I was kind of ambivalent about, but at least wanted to be offered it! I was actually interviewed twice for this job in the past and was the number two candidate both times – the dept wanted, as did I, for our top internal candidate to get the job, but I would be next in line if candidate one didn’t take the job.
I was practically begged by colleagues to apply for the opening so I did it in public-spiritedness. Our dept is huge, complex, and has a lot of quirky professorial folk to manage. A long-lasting tradition is the candidate must have a Ph.D. and minimum of five years teaching experience.
The TL;DR version of politics: I’ve been there 11 years, the majority love me, a minority are okay about me, and a few people despise me (one of them is a person I whistle-blew on for corruption and evil deeds some years back and they lost an a