You can buy an electric razor/clippers that you can set for different lengths, so you are never cleanshaven. (One for your face, not your head.)
Back when Miami Vice was on, they used to sell a special razor that would give you a three-day-beard, so you could look like Sonny Crockett.
My advice: pwned by comment 1. Get a beard trimmer and a no. 4 comb or whatever.
Try a zero (no comb) on the clipper--you can't actually get close enough to shave like a razor. A 1 is like 4-5 days growth.
I had to very carefully shave/trim/clipper my beard thingie this morning so as to prevent the dude who cuts my fair from forcibly trimming it down to your standard IT guy goatee. He still took a run at it, but I managed to fight him off.
I think whether it's totally toolish or slovenly or precious may be a function of how/whether you shape it.
I'm guessing a bit, going just from the fact that I've seen two-day growth guys who did just look slovenly, while I've known others who routinely wear stubble and look distinguished in it.
I imagine barbers know all about the shaping business and could provide tips, but at a guess you probably wouldn't want to get very elaborate about it: more like, there may be stubbled areas of the face that make the whole look seem disheveled, so shave those spots all the way down and voila.
Or maybe you're lucky and look distinguished naturally.
I like your title, Stanley. No advice on effective stubbling, though.
7: Why, thanks. Some friends and I once tried to come up with a whole parody version of the song; that's the only part I remember.
I'd forgotten the song completely until this post title.
Back when Miami Vice was on, they used to sell a special razor that would give you a three-day-beard, so you could look like Sonny Crockett.
It was actually called the Miami Device.
Topically, I have been trying to hone disposable razors. You take it and kind of shave backward on denim or other fabric. I've been using the same Atra cartridge since September but I don't think it is working as well as a couple of weeks ago.
I thought every real Scot understood teh cheap.
13: That's awfully rich from someone willing to pay real, actual money to eat at Arby's.
Razor blades aren't that expensive* and I really value a face which has a non-increasing number of scars. There are areas where being teh stingy Scot makes sense, but razors isn't one of them (for me).
* I don't use cartridges.
Plus, the environment. Plus, I don't have a very heavy beard so it doesn't make nearly that big of a problem for me.
Well, in the UK, if you buy Mach 3 or similar, they cost closer to $2 each. But still, if I had to, I'd pay a couple of quid a week for a trouble-free shave. As it happens I use safety razor blades that cost about about 10-20 cents each.
No wonder you guys have worse riots.
I have been trying to hone disposable razors.
I think you mean "home".
Tweety was so wrong, but as I'm drinking a rusty nail at this very moment, I'm not going to worry about how wrong he often is. This bartender had to learn how to make one just for me.
Older-school "safety" double-edged razors are totally the way to do things, even if you are being cheap. I can buy a pack of 100 blades on eBay for about $15, and that lasts a couple of years. It's still cheaper than modern cartridges even if you buy some of the corresponding and slightly foppish shaving cream.
I'm thinking of growing a beard again this winter. The problem is that it takes six weeks for it to start tip look like a beard.
24: Why ebay? Are they cheaper there? If so, why?
I don't understand the aversion to modern shaving technology. Gillette Laser-Powered Shave-O-Zap disposables work so much better than disposables of my adolescence or even college years that the $2-3 per week seems pretty tolerable, given the much-reduced incidence of painful ingrown hairs, etc.
Hairs grow out. I've not figured how to make them grow otherwise, unless you count up my nose as ingrown.
The hairs grow out.
The hairs grow in.
The hairs play pinochle on my skin.
29: Traditionally: in, out, snout ("unless you count up my nose as ingrown.").
My experience with modern shaving tech, up to the Gillette Fusion Power, was pretty painful and less in control than I liked. It may just be a personal style/skin type thing, but the single-blade thing works much better for me. I no longer look like I have a neck rash 5 days of the week. I can't compare to the cheaper disposable razors or cartridges, only to the electric shavers I used before that, and I managed to cut myself regularly with those as well.
(Why eBay? Once you find a brand you like, there's always someone selling bulk quantities.)
Is it time for my nightly pity party yet? Because woe is me. Exhausted, need to get work done, and...Hokey Pokey got sent home again today.
And we are going to try to get him in to see a doctor tomorrow.
But seriously, most poops are fine. And he's happy and healthy seeming, and eating and drinking plenty and not dehydrated or anything.
35 and 36: Gah, that sucks. Did you get the fecal lab results back ever?
When Jammies picked him up today, they included a little internet print-out informing us about diarrhea, and I think Jammies nearly punched the person.
In in a bar trying to decide if I should have another rusty nail. Won't anybody feel my pain.
And yet, here you are, commenting on a blog. Didn't the pamphlet teach you anything?
If you want me to, I'd be happy to put together a little pamphlet you can attach to him next time you drop him off.
Moby I'll make you a pamphlet about how to decide if you want a rusty nail, but it might not be ready in time to be helpful.
Haven't gotten the lab report yet. And Jammies can work from home tomorrow, which means that I don't have to bring him to work, which helps. But holy smokes.
Have you tried giving the daycare people a tray full of rusty nails?
Rusties nail? Whatever the plural is.
Today at work there was a guest speaker who was making the point that all of your private information is available online, and to do so, he brought up the search results from a google search of gay men in the small rural town that we were in. And he clicked on a few of them and said "See? This guy doesn't care if everyone knows he's gay! He's twirling his nipple!" or whatever. Showing these to an auditorium full of college students. WHO MIGHT EVEN BE ON THE SEARCH RESULTS. Or who might be insanely homophobic. Ugh.
If you want me to, I'd be happy to put together a little pamphlet you can attach to him next time you drop him off.
Can it explain the glory of looking the other way and not following the rule book every goddamn time my kid shits slightly loosely?
45: That was time that could have been spent delivering that flag I ordered, Bets.
41.2: Decided to go home.
In anti-racism news, while waiting for the bus I accidentally made a black guy afraid that I was going to mug him. I like to think that somehow helps.
Stanley, if you can look like George Clooney, by whatever method, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you should.
Also, George Bent, the mixed-blood Cheyenne memory keeper of the early twentieth century, spent a statistically significant percentage of his correspondence with James Mooney (the great Smithsonian ethnographer), George Bird Grinnell (one of the fathers of professional anthropology), and George Hyde (a loser historian) talking about his impossible quest for a functional safety razor. Which is to say, ttaM is right: one of the great boons of post-modernity is access to the Gillette Fusion. People who turn their back on such convenience might as well wear hair shirts as far as I'm concerned.
My brother got a kitten a few weeks ago, and 2 days ago his puppy accidentally killed it by playing too rough.
So awful.
That probably should have had an OT or a pause/play or something
What could it possibly help? Why are bars by ATMs and bus stops?
I guess you need to be sure zoning boards are more attentive.
48.2: Wow. You weren't afraid he was going to mug you? That's one million Progressiveness Points in the bank, my friend. Everything's coming up Moby!
Stanley, I think the logical step is to rock the 'stache. Gradually weans you off facial hair, and in the interim you'll totally look like Tom Selleck. It's win-win.
57.2: I rocked the 'stache on Halloween. I was told I resembled Freddie Mercury.
58: Even better! You'll be a chick-magnet and a dude-magnet all in one!
re: 49
As it happens, I prefer old-fashioned safety razors,* rather than Gilette Laser-Zapp-o-Nanoblades. But I'd definitely use the latter over some disposable blades I was resharpening my self.
* for exactly the same reason as Nathan in 33 above. I don't cut myself, or get a shaving rash with them, whereas I used to regularly cut myself quite badly with the fancier/more-expensive cartridges, and always had a horrible shaving rash when I used them.
Also, the safety razor blades are cheap, so I only use them once or twice, and still spend very little money.
60: I was honing them. That's not resharpening, that's honing and it is different.
the corresponding and slightly foppish shaving cream
There's something to be said for mixing up your own lather with a shaving brush.
I used to regularly cut myself quite badly with the fancier/more-expensive cartridges
I use one of those cartridge razors that has wires across the front and I think it's actually impossible to cut yourself with it. The result is that I am now the world's worst shaver, and if I use a non-wired razor, bad things happen.
Razor blades aren't that expensive* and I really value a face which has a non-increasing number of scars.
You get scarsfrom cutting yourself shaving? As in permanent scars? Is that a phenomenon one gets as the face gets harder or rougher over time?
re: 64
I have a spot near my lip where I've cut it repeatedly, and where because it was one of those multi-blade razors* I had a couple of little parallel cuts that didn't heal well. There used to be a fine hairline pair of scars there, but I expect they've faded now. I can't see as I have a beard/moustache.
* it used to be a known trick to wedge a coin between two blades in a Stanley knife** in order to create a slash that was harder to heal.
** box cutter in US parlance?
I get a rash on a particular part of my neck if I shave too quickly with the Mach 3. After years of quiet longing, I think it might be time to try one of the old-school safety razors.
65: There are boxcutters that take two blades? And why would it be harder to heal? The different angles?
Because it takes a big strip out [worst case], or leaves two parallel cuts right next to each other, which are harder to stitch. A friend has a scar the length of his face from getting this done to him in a bar in the East End of Glasgow.
With a classic Stanley knife -- a proper one with a handle that comes apart with a screw -- you can put two blades side by side, and just use a spacer to wedge them apart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aaknife2.jpg
http://www.stanleytools.com/catalog_images/mid_res/10-209_mid_res.jpg
Common knowledge in all walks of life over there, as I understand.
Note that this almost certainly takes it from being entirely legal to carry in public to being considered an offensive weapon...
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My office has the problem that I set off the smoke alarm the first time I use my heater each fall, from the accumulated dust. This must be a solved problem. How do people whose heaters set off the smoke alarms the first time each season solve this problem?
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I hesitate to say unplug it, open the casing, and dust the heating element off with a damp rag or paper towel or something, because it can't be that easy. Or open a window and put it next to the window so the smoke escapes? Or put on a sweater?
Give the heater a blast from a compressed-air can before turning it on?
Disable the smoke alarm for a day?
65, 68: I call those "utility knives" but for years nearly all of them were made by Stanley (the corporation).
I used to think "box cutters" referred only to knives where you could only expose a very small bit of the blade, but maybe that was only me.
Excellent ideas! I'm so glad I asked.
Turn it on, and then light a fire in the recycle bin of your most annoying coworker, so noöne blames you.
Alternately, remember you're in Texas.
re: 71
Yeah. I don't think you even need to modify stuff for it to be classes as offensive weapon if you don't already have a plausible use for it. If I go to the pub with a screwdriver in my pocket, I could be nicked.
What if it was a Philips head screwdriver?
How are 77.1 and 77.2 mutually exclusive? With your standard Stanley knife (99E is the only one you should ever buy -- all of the frippery they add on to the other models just makes them less useful) it's very easy to extend the blade only slightly so that you can, for instance, cut open boxes at minimal danger to the contents.
65 is very useful information. Somehow in all my skinhead/hooligan research that particular modification had not come to light.
82: Or one of those squarehead ones like they have in Canadia?
Alternately, remember you're in Texas.
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
I'm in Texas!
Shit, where am I?
84: Canada is to blame for me having to buy another screwdriver? Those fuckers.
FWIW, my friend, who had this done to him, has two very fine parallel white lines rather than some horrific scar. You can't see it at all unless you are really close.
83.1: A utility knife can be used to cut boxes but it isn't a box cutter because you can also use it to do hundreds of other tasks. It seems very strange to, for example, cut drywall with a box cutter.
83.1 I think he meant "only could"- the box cutter would have a limit of not being able to have the blade stick out farther than a very small bit.
Is this a good thread where I can bitch about how I really really need to get my last recommendation letter like fucking TODAY or several of my applications are saying they will no longer consider me a candidate, while the author of this much-desired letter tells me to believe him, it's no big rush actually, and he'll get to it soon, which he has been saying for a month? I'm really losing my shit. Halp.
Go sit in his office while he does it. Emphasize that you're there to help with the franked envelope and all and you don't mind waiting.
Get a box cutter and go to his office.
I need him to upload it to a dossier service. Like I need him to do it right now so I can get these sent out this afternoon. I spoke to him about it several times this week, and every time, he got really annoyed, like it is a huge burden. I know he's really really busy. I am too. I also want to be employed next year and not out on my ass. Should I send the two I have? Or three, but including one that's a year old and probably says a lot of stuff about what a neat grad student I am? The problem with sending another when I get it is that it doubles my dossier service costs, which are already astronomical. Fuck fuck fuck. I hate this.
What's your relationship with him? Can you go to his office (don't know if this is locationally practical -- I don't think what I'm suggesting would work over the phone) and hyperventilate at him -- not get angry, but just unload how worried you are about the deadline, and how with all your debt you're not sure where you're going to borrow the three hundred bucks it'll take to send it in late, and you've been hearing that schools are using minor clerical issues like late letters to filter out applicants, and and and and and.
Whether that makes any sense at all to do depends on the guy, and you'll know better than I if it might work.
Yeah, he keeps giving me these lines about how committees these days are so mean and demanding and I don't need them if they're going to be like that. Thanks for the advice! But I kind of do need them!
"I've been waking up in the middle of the night and I can't get back to sleep worrying about it -- if you can tell me when you'll be able to get it in, maybe I can hike my dosage of anti-anxiety meds, but I don't want to do that for too long."
86: Canadians have Roberts screwdrivers.
Who manages his life? If his wife, maybe call her.
If it was me, I would probably write "I want to be employed next year and not out on my ass." as the subject, "several of my applications are saying they will no longer consider me a candidate. I will use my outdated rec rather than the zero I have from you before COB. Please respond immediately." as the body, and then go physically sit on his desk. This isn't adult behavior from him-- if he doesn't have time to write the perfect letter, he should have printed and signed a good but vague one last week.
98: Japanese have robot screwdrivers.
98: According to wikipedia, those are Robertson screwdrivers. Apparently, Robert was a slacker but his son knew a thing or two about threaded fasteners.
100. Depending on his structural relationship to Ms Rice, I'd consider it abusive behaviour.
He's single. I've talked to the department secretary and his best friend in the department, and both said he's tough to get to do stuff on anyone's schedule but his own. He claims it was written weeks ago, but hasn't had time to revise it to his standard. I don't want him to be annoyed with me as he writes it. Getting a bad letter is worse than getting no letter.
101: Bartenders have robust screwdrivers.
In those kinds of situations, I generally wish that there was a mobster I knew to whom I could owe a favor for the rest of my life.
Can you make it about the money? "I'm so sorry to pressure you, but I really can't afford the extra fee to put your letter in late. Can you do it today? If you can't, I'm going to have to hope they forgive me for not having enough letters, because I can't pay the extra." And then start rambling about the injustice of making the job application process depend on funding; you understand that he's doing the best he can for you, but the fact that this is going to damage your applications because you don't have the money to file late is a major injustice, and the schools that set it up that way should be ashamed.
I'm trying to figure out guilt-trips that won't piss him off, but it's hard.
104: totally unacceptable behavior. Who's the graduate program coordinator? Go to that person. Right now. Be incredibly nice -- as you obviously are -- but firm. Explain that you've asked several times and have been put off. Explain that the letter must be done today. And then never ask this person for a letter again. Unless this person has twin MacArthurs propped up by a stack of Nobels/Pulitzers, it's not worth subjecting yourself to this kind of bullshit. Seriously, this person is guilty of the worst form of professional malpractice: the kind that harms others with less power. Not okay at all.
a mobster I knew to whom I could owe a favor for the rest of my life.
How many orange juice cocktails do you want the guy to buy you?
If Condi has to use the old letter, is there any mileage in adding a note that a reference from this guy will be forthcoming in due course? If his reputation, as per the department secretary, is widely known?
I'm trying to figure out guilt-trips that won't piss him off, but it's hard.
There's Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt. In my experience both of those can be manipulated. But you just can't make a Protestant do anything.
Sorry, that was harsher than I intended it to be. It's just that this kind of thing makes my blood boil. Anyway, I should have added, Condi, that this isn't your fault at all and that this kind of thing happens more often than it should (which is never).
Regardless, do not, under any circumstances blow the deadline. Send the old letter that your dossier service has and then ask this person to send the new one at his leisure. Most hiring committees will accept a letter after the fact, especially if it's an update of one that's already in the file. Regardless, don't fuck around with their personnel regulations. If they say you won't be a candidate if you blow the deadline, you very likely won't be a candidate.
110: The only thing that works on them is sunrise. And other dastardly Calvinist techniques.
Part of the problem is that I am at a school without a graduate program, and he's been here for over a decade, so I don't think he urgently feels the distress of the current market environment.
I don't understand the dossier service thing... I thought the way this worked was that the prof gives the letter to a secretary in the dept. and you give the secretary the list of places to send it. (Of course in math we have mathjobs which makes these issues obsolete for most jobs, so my knowledge of the other way is 5 years out of date.)
But you just can't make a Protestant do anything.
This may explain my parents' marriage.
Money's a good angle, maybe "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so many great writers were troubled by the problem of endless revision" (actually the only two I know of are Dostoevsky and Kundera). The main point is to get him to print the fucking draft he has.
116: Assumes facts not in evidence.
OK, so I've emailed him a very friendly message asking him to email me when the letter has been uploaded because the service doesn't inform me and I need to send about 20 dossiers out by this afternoon, and they're already extensions of deadlines, and I hope he has a really nice weekend planned etc.
113: then send what you've got and give him a list of stamped and addressed envelopes and ask him to send the perfectest ever letters on his special timeline whenever he can. And again, never ask him for a letter in the future. And when you have more power than him, remember never to act like this.
115: On weekends in the summer, I do couple's counseling in a tent at the flea market.
My letter problem at the moment is that one research school decided to be special snowflakes and not use the math jobs website that all other research schools use (they wanted to weed out the people who weren't serious about it). This means all my letter writers have to go to an extra site and upload the letter an extra time. That particular school is missing a letter from my advisor (it's now a week after their deadline = the day he uploaded the letter to the normal site). It's not super-high on the list of places that are great fits, so I don't really want to spend too much of my nagging energy on this (though I love the location). Better to only nag about genuinely important things. But it's annoying. (I'm more annoyed at the school who should have only made the *applicants* jump through extra hoops, not doubled the work for the letter writers who are busy people.)
121: That happens in my field too, although some of those websites now allow you to use the dossier service to upload to their website. One state college keeps emailing me to remind me that I am not being considered, and that meetings have already begun to discuss the position, but without my last recommendation, which he is supposed to upload, they can't consider me. I can't even get my recommender to upload to my fucking dossier service. I have to also get him to upload to your site too?
I'm starting to freak a little bit.
The dossier service charges the applicants not the schools? That seems like the wrong way to go about it...
All of my applications want the referrers to send letters as email attachments (or some insist on hard copies) directly. I've never heard of a dossier service except here- every job description I've seen in the past 3 years just says "send letters as attachments with xxx in the subject line" or "have letters sent to address below".
I feel mildly guilty every time I email all my people about more recommendations, but they seem to expect it...
And when you have more power than him, remember never to act like this to look for ways to damage his career.
OK, so it's 4pm, no letter, no email. If I send 20 dossiers with the old third letter and then send his when it's ready, that will be $240 rather than $120. And the old third letter might be so inappropriate that it makes me look like a fool. Some of these letters are 3-4 weeks past the deadline. Some of the schools contacted me and, after asking my recommender when would be a good time, did he think, to upload the letter to the dossier service, I informed them that today, at the very latest, would be the day when I would send them the complete dossier. The dossier service closes at 5, so beyond then I won't even be able to get anything out today, and it will probably take a whole hour to send out 20 dossiers. So I'm fucked, basically.
Nothing to do but send them. I'm sorry that jerk screwed you over.
No, you're not fucked. Again, send out what you've got. That's really your only choice at this point. As soon as that's done, have a beer or a glass of wine. On Monday, bring a stack of addressed and stamped envelopes to the delinquent recommendor. Ask him please to get the letters off as soon as possible. It will be obvious, upon their arrival, that he was at fault. And in many cases the hiring committees will simply replace the old letters with the new ones.
This option has the additional virtue of only costing you 20 x whatever postage stamps cost these days. In other words, you'll only be out ~$10.
Also, you should know that hiring committees are perfectly aware that fuckwits like this recommendor exist. Materials come in late all the time. And so long as it's clear that you're not at fault, you won't be held accountable. Again, though, put on your to-do list finding someone else to write for you in the future.
"What an asshole," is what I'm trying to say.
A remarkably low percentage of applications are complete at the deadline.
Von Wafer's advice seems sound to me, as does urple's analysis.
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No more masturbating to Flattus Maximus.
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Fine, but it doesn't get me a job. The important thing here is that I really desperately need a job. Not getting a job this year would be disastrous.
Would his letter have told them important things about you that the others don't? If your other two were good ones, using an old third might not affect you so much. Obviously the job market sucks, but there are actual hiring criteria and then there are bureaucratic-necessity hiring criteria.
Condi, hang in there. This is a letter from a new colleague, right? Condi-is-a-good-teacher-and-wonderful-person-please-to-remove-from-VAP-for-lovely-T-T? So not one of your most central letters. You have those. Search committees are made up of academics. They know most of their colleagues can't find their ass with both hands. Letters always trickle in late and as near as I can tell they're always added to the file. Send out what you've got; add a line to the cover letter indicating that letters are being sent under separate cover. It's the rare case where deadlines are firm, or that search committees have their shit together before December in any case.
Then, do what ari says, but find a sympathetic colleague. You need to get someone with a little oomph on your side who can pull this guy aside and point out gently that he's being a dick.
They know most of their colleagues can't find their ass with both hands.
Just out of curiosity, why is that so common? I know somebody who works with academics who is completely convinced that getting a PHD makes people dumber.
Also, my sympathies to Condi.
It's bad enough to work for somebody who loves giving people stupid nicknames, much worse to work with people who do things that fuck with your potential livelihood.
140: Not enough structure? I was thinking that the letter thing has to be more difficult because it's structured as someone doing you a favor, and a lot of academic responsibilities seem to be in that vaguely optional category. Someone who's prone to having fits of doing the minimum necessary to get by (which I'm not going to judge anyone for, being that way inclined myself) is probably going to dip further below normal levels of performance as an academic than they might in a more tightly organized workforce.
My guess: the academy selects for self-motivated people whose daily research lives are by and large free of deadlines and useless protocol (compared to other lines of work.) It's hard to take a deadline seriously when most of the time there's wiggle room. (I do think this is a stereotype more true of older academics, but there's some truth to the absentminded professor trope.)
129: I've even heard stories of professors who are prone to lateness calling up the committees at schools and asking "so what's your real deadline?" The issue here is the $120, not whether you'll get a job.
Many of the things that people are absent minded about are things completely irrelevant to their "performance." Research (= actual performance) is what you get done when you've managed to avoid all the other things people think you should do.
It's like how people are worried that if they referee papers too quickly then people will ask them to referee too often. So good performance in the sense of doing the refereeing job well is counterproductive to your actual measured performance (your research output).
Lots of people suck at their jobs. Almost all people suck at some facet of their jobs. Whether delinquent-letter-writing academics are worse at this facet of their jobs than most non academics are at the part of their jobs that they suck at is beyond me. I sort of doubt it.
Put another way, most letters of recommendation get done on time. The ones that don't are noteworthy. And the perpetrators quickly develop a reputation for sucking at this element of their job (as, given that the secretary and friend mentioned in Ms. Rice's story were not surprised to hear about this problem, apparently is the case here). Such people should be shunned but usually aren't. The situation is crazy-making.
Having said all of that, deadlines in the academy, especially among social scientists and humanists, are often either ignored outright or treated as minor inconveniences. That kind of behavior becomes habitual pretty easily. Again, crazy-making.
You're historians. Isn't 'plus or minus a decade' close enough for you?
I sort of get the feeling I'm being punished for being anxious. So every time I send an email about it, my letter goes to the bottom of his to-do list or something. That will teach me to be less anxious, definitely!
Nnnh. This weekend is going to suck. The job I want most told me Monday or don't bother, so I'm just going to forward that message and tell him to email it directly to them.
Nixon resigned from office in 1981, plus or minus a decade.
148: What about responding to the prospective employer and saying "[Asshole] will be sending you the letter directly," and cc:ing him, and then following up with a note just to him saying that you thought having him send the letter directly would be the least trouble. The public shaming might be useful, unless you think it'd make him more hostile.
Is it possible to shame someone when there's such an institutional power and status differential, and he's so smugly taking advantage of it?
146 Put another way, most letters of recommendation get done on time. The ones that don't are noteworthy.
Huh. That has not been my experience at all. I'm pretty sure one guy last year sent all of my letters a month late. This was not a big deal. I think he called people and chatted with them earlier, semi-in-lieu-of sending a letter.
Recently I discovered that my current employer has had an ad advertising a faculty position on their website for a few weeks. They didn't advertise it anywhere that people would actually notice. Today I discovered that at least one person here is slightly puzzled about why more people haven't applied.
I was kind of wondering if they were intentionally not advertising it in a noticeable way because they might have already picked a particular person they wanted, but it seems they're just not that competent at figuring out how to publicize things.
This might be something field specific, but I really don't think there's any point in making a big deal about why it's late. Letters come in late all the time. It's unfortunate that your financial situation is such that $120 is a problem, and your letter writer should have been more sensitive to your situation, but late letters are objectively not a big deal. There's certainly no good to be done in trying to shame the person, it'll just make them dislike you and won't make them hand in the letter any earlier.
late letters are objectively not a big deal
That's what I would think, but I'm also pretty sure if I called up anywhere I'm applying they wouldn't tell me "get the letter today or you won't be a candidate," as Condi says. If a place told me that, I think I would worry a bit. I would also think they were assholes.
A few jobs I applied to had deadlines in mid-October, and I didn't even bother asking my letter writers to try to make those deadlines. Schools with unreasonably early deadlines know that they can't expect all the letters in by their unreasonable deadline. Obviously the candidate should submit their info on time (both for legal/HR reasons and to make a good impression), but letter writers are an entirely different issue. Lots of schools solicit letters on their own for their shortlist candidates, so if you have enough letters to get on a shortlist it really doesn't matter when the last one or two come in. This is also a good reason to have many more letters written than are "required." (Most jobs ask for 3 or 4 letters, this year I have 7, though only 5 are actually uploaded at the moment, and one of them I didn't ask for until after some deadlines.)
Yeah, I had an October 15 deadline, and they tell me they want to do interviews in January. (They already made me do a "pre-interview," which was more grueling than any actual interview I did last year.) I get the impression they know they're one of the less attractive options this year and they're aiming to make a decision early and try to force someone to commit to them before hearing what the better schools choose. Which seems a little desperate.
I really need to make some decisions about how many jobs I'm applying for. I'm feeling some reluctance about going after good-but-not-great options since I would be happy where I am for a few more years.
156: my assumption was that this was an issue with an HR department's rules, rather than something at the departmental level. Because certainly we'd never ignore an attractive candidate who only had two rather than three letters on file. If we wanted another letter, we'd ask the candidate to forward it asap. But at my old job, the HR rules could be absolute: if an application wasn't complete by X date, that application was non-viable. It was insane.
One of the schools I'm applying to has a warning in their ad that late applications cannot be considered, which I assume is some sort of stupid hiring rule imposed by their state. But my assumption was that as long as the application was technically complete at the deadline then everything was fine, not that they couldn't consider any information received after the deadline. I mean, if one of a candidates letters comes in late, can't you just solicit a letter from that person on your own volition?
You're historians. Isn't 'plus or minus a decade' close enough for you?
I made a joke along these lines while talking to a medievalist and it got me a glare that indicated I was completely ignorant of the field and an idiot. In fairness to the glarer, it was a pretty dumb joke. Although it was basically an escalation from "lucky to remember the month" and "lucky to remember the year" that was a part of the preceding conversation about historians remember/knowing dates.
a "pre-interview," which was more grueling than any actual interview I did last year
I went through an interview recently. I was asked my new least-favorite interview question (replacing, "What's your biggest weakness?"): "Where do you see yourself one year from now; and five years from now?"
Burning Man, occupying Wall Street.
What's the right answer? Pushing paper, middle management?
I think the right answer is "working for you" for both.
168: That was kinda my misdirected answer! I win! Maybe.
Good luck, Stanley. When will you hear if you got the job?
I could actually be ok with that question depending on the position - that is, if it was a position/field I'd like to stay in. Other screening interview questions have been a nightmare for me.
I've never worked in a place with much conflict, ok? Don't make me make something up. It inevitably sounds like a bunch of BS where it sounds like I'm making something that wasn't a big deal and that I was only peripherally involved it out to be something where I helped "deal" with the "conflict." And saying I haven't faced much conflict either doesn't help either, as you can tell they think you're evading the question. Who hasn't dealt with workplace conflict? (Me.)
And teo gets at the important part: I hope you get a real interview and it goes well.
I've never encountered interview questions about workplace conflict. That would make me wonder about the nature of the work environment.
Oh, essear had the pre-interview. Time to take reading comprehension out of my cover letters.
175: A good one there: "What would you do if a coworker got a promotion you had also interviewed for?"
I would wish essear good luck too, but he seems to inhabit some magical fantasy land of multiple fantastic job opportunities everywhere he looks.
Huh, every generic screening interview I've had (n = small) has had a question along the lines of "describe one time you've dealt with conflict in the workplace (or in some other organizational setting, like group projects). It's only come up once in an actual-talk-about-the-job-and-your-suitability-therefore kind of interview (n=smaller) that I've had. Or at least from what I can remember.
I guess I've had questions about dealing with difficult situations or interacting with people under challenging, emotionally charged circumstances, but they were generally posed as involving interactions with the public or other organizations, not within the workplace itself.
This might be a function of the different types of jobs we've applied for.
I probably couldn't do much with those questions, but they make some sense for specific job contexts. It's possible that's what they were getting at in the one interview I had where dealing with the public was most of the job. I might even have misunderstood them. But in that case I'd already had a hard time with the question about a time when I've done a really excellent job at customer service, which I've never done any job at whatsoever.
For the record, my least favorite interview question was "what kind of workplace do you prefer?" Uh, yours?
In other job-search-related news, I recently started reading What Color Is Your Parachute. It's quite good, but the copy I have is my dad's from when he dropped out of grad school in 2001, and it was clearly written at the height of the dot-com boom. There's a bunch of stuff about how "everyone's saying these days that the internet has revolutionized job searching and books like this are obsolete, but actually job searching online is just as difficult as the traditional way," which comes across as a bit defensive on Bolles's part but did of course turn out to be correct.
"What would you do if a coworker got a promotion you had also interviewed for?"
Good god. "Uh, once I stopped crying, I guess I would probably take a shit in his file cabinet?"
I got an interview asking me how I liked to be supported on the job. Having just come from WF, I was at a loss, pivoted, said that i didn't mean to duck the question but could they flesh out what they saw the job as being about first?
Then partway through the interview, I said that keeping lines of communication open was very important. I was also asked what I've done when I made a mistake. I followed that up with, "To answer your earlier questiona bout how I can best be supported, it's important to me to work in an environment where if I make a mistake, I can go to my supervisor, admit it and we can find a solution. I got that job, so it seems to have worked out okay. Having said that, my immediate supervisors are very good, but the senior management is dysfunctional so there are plenty of problems.
The best/most awful question I got was. "We've all had really difficult bosses. Tell me about one of yours and what made her so challenging?"
Ick, I hate being asked what I'll be doing in five years. "Working on a new idea I haven't thought of yet" doesn't satisfy people.
I may have mentioned I was asked in an annual appraisal what I wanted to be doing in 5 years, and being extremely pissed off at the time, wrote, "Selling ice creams on the beach in Bimini." My boss read this and asked where Bimini was, so I told him and he said, "You can sell them off my bar, then." That company had no idea there was a morale problem.
And best of luck to essear and Condi. Don't you hate this fucking lottery.
