Search Committee Chair
Social Science Department
Nice University
Reasonable Town, United State 00000
Social Science Department
Nice University
Reasonable Town, United State 00000
Dr. Angry Professor
Social Science Department
Large State University
Ellesiouville, Square State 99999
Dear Angry Professor,
Please find enclosed the announcement for a tenure-track position opening in our nice department. This announcement will soon appear in Social Science Trade Publication. I would appreciate your posting the announcement or forwarding it to any interested individuals.
Yours sincerely,
Search Committee Chair
Angry Professor
Social Science Department
Large State University
Ellesiouville, Square State 99999
Social Science Department
Large State University
Ellesiouville, Square State 99999
Search Committee Chair
Social Science Department
Nice University
Reasonable Town, United State 00000
Dear Search Committee Chair,
Thank you for informing me of the opening in your department. I wanted very much to post this in a visible place so that all our graduate students learned of it. Unfortunately, our department has decided that bulletin boards are "messy," and they have all been removed.
I attempted to mount your announcement on the wall with tape, but I was unaware of the new department policy which states that all notices may be hung with only a single piece of tape. A staff member took it down because it was "messy" and discarded it.
In the future, please do not send position announcements to our department. They create a general untidiness that disturbs the staff, and the tape mars the paint on the walls. We do, however, wish to thank you for considering our graduate program a likely source of candidates for positions in your department.
Warm regards,
Angry Professor
8 comments:
Wow. You could use a really long piece of tape that runs all the way around the edge.
Do you have a director of graduate studies to whom you could complain/forward? Perhaps a Dean of a Graduate School who might have a word with the admin folks?
GDad, what a great idea. I'll try that next time.
Ahistoricality, this decision was made by the chair, who is as upset by mess as are the staff. The building was just repainted and recarpeted. Hopefully an undergraduate will come through late some night and vomit on a wall, and this temporary madness will be over.
"Also, in the future, please consider emailing a PDF of your announcement, which I can then painlessly forward to the appropriate email list(s)."
But then I wouldn't have anything to be angry about.
There were rules like this at Bone Head tech where I taught for a while. These rules were enforced by the director of facilities. He would personally inspect the all the walls of all 30 buildings twice year. He had a retinue of 3 people with him. He personally would inspect the walls. If he found something that he did not like he would holler "WRITE HIM UP!, WRITE HIM UP!" He would froth and tremble while he was yelling.
Then the retinue would swing into action. Person one would yank out a form and fill it out detailing all the hideous crime. Person two would pull out a 35MM single lens reflex camera and take several pictures. Person three carried the portable file box that contained all the write ups and film from the current inspection.
I wonder if we put some tape on the director's skin if he would holler, "It burns us, it burns us?"
Ah yes, the Wall Police. We have them here, too. They insist this violates building codes or fire codes or whatever.
As a young, enthusiastic professor I made the mistake of hanging a map of the world (gasp!) in the hallway and marking it with places where our students have been - we insist that they spend a semester abroad and (by now) have had people in over 40 countries.
After a few weeks it disappeared without a trace, no one would own up to having removed it.
I now color a little map and hang it behind the little teeny announcement board with a plastic cover that is alloted to me. And set up mailing lists for all important information.
When I was interviewing for faculty positions, one of the things I would do is walk around the offices and if there wern't notices on the boards and cartoons and sayng on faculty doors, I knew it wasn't the place for me. Thinking is messy.
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