Dear Students On Campus,
It is rainy and dark and there are lots of cars on the road at 5.00pm. Most of you are wearing dark, drab colors and insist on staring at your feet while you move from place to place.
If you want to continue being able to stare at your feet, Do. Not. Walk. Blindly. Into. Traffic.
Seriously. At least five of you tried to get yourselves killed tonight.
Cross at crosswalks, by streetlights. Don't assume I can see you. Just because I'm not texting on my Smart-iPad-Blackberrytooth doesn't mean the person behind isn't.
Please don't die.
Love,
Hark
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Dear Uninvolved Committee Member,
The least you could do is pretend to have an interest in my work/future.
When you asked me what kind of Latin jobs were out there, I wasn't too put out. I don't expect you to keep track of these things. But when you followed that up with "I've only been following the Greek ones for Dan," I got a bit hacked off.
Dan graduated three fucking years ago and you're still helping him find a job, yet you can't exert the minimal effort of scrolling through the APA listings for one of your current students? What the hell?
Tactfully silent in my fury,
JH
6 comments:
I second both of those letters.
I had a committee member who was totally uninterested in anything but his own research. It turned out that the other two were valuable where he wasn't. Can't win 'em all. But the best resource for jobs, honestly, was online. Especially blogs from people giving advice about the market. I might write a post or two about that stuff myself coming up, since I am sort of unofficially on a search committee and JUST got a job. Might be useful to someone out there if I write about this stuff I'm seeing.
At any rate - keep writing. Keep applying. Keep your chin up.
Fie! - Yes! Those things would be useful for some of us out here! By all means, give us the inside scoop! It will be so tasty...
The first one reminds me of something that happened here last year:
http://cornellsun.com/node/44698
Possibly the best closing I've heard in a long time!
"Tactfully silent in my fury," = Letter Closing Award hereby given to Hark.
(Upset for you--wth, people?--but the gorgeousness of that closure had to be noted.)
Tamayn, Ink, you're both too kind. Thank you.
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