Campus visit attire

All right, now that I have a campus visit coming up, let's talk about what really matters: clothes.  Last year, Historiann had a post on this subject in regard to academic conferences, and the comments together with the post seem as close to an authoritative treatise on the topic as you will ever see.

But hark: this is no conference, but a short-list interview for a non-tenure-track position.  My gut instinct is that the temporality of this job suggests a slightly more casual dress standard than tenure-track, since you're trying to convince people to set in motion the process of hiring you forever.  On the other hand, I imagine that it would be inappropriate for me to show up in truly casual teaching clothes — in my case, jeans, a polo or button-down, and maybe a sport coat if the weather isn't too warm.

All right, theory section concluded, and on to praxis: should I wear a suit, or should I wear a sport coat-and-slacks combo?  I hope very much to hear from my friendly neighborhood bloggers who have served on hiring committees, since they will have been through this process on both sides of the table.  Let me give you an idea of my thoughts on the matter.

SUIT
The bad:

• Not as comfortable.
• Makes me feel like I'm at a wedding or funeral.
• Despite my best attempts to seem debonair, the suit probably doesn't flatter me as much as I would like.  (I'll never be able to afford a tailored suit.)

 The good:

• Indexes respect for audience and people encountered more certainly than any other clothing choice.
• If the weather is warm, a suit might actually be a little less sweat-inducing than any of my sport coats.

SPORT COAT AND TROUSERS 
The bad:

• Less formal — does that mean less respectful?
• May index casualness of attitude toward job?
• If the weather is warm, I will be a sweaty mess.

The good:

• Generally more comfortable.
• Makes me feel like a professor, rather than a job applicant; I often teach in these clothes anyway.
• Feels more natural to me, and will make me feel more at ease.
• I think that these clothes drape a little better on me, and look at least a trifle more fashionable than my undertaker-on-holiday suit.

Hmm.  I guess my question is ultimately, "Oh, pleasepleaseplease, can I pleeeeeease wear a sport coat and trousers instead of a suit?  Pretty please?"

Happy update

Ghosttown U. wants to renew my contract for the next academic year.  Apparently, I'm not as much of a failure as I sometimes fear I am.  So hey, job for next year!

This, of course, doesn't mean that I'm throwing in the towel with that other place inviting me to a campus visit.  I mean, hell, I already bought the airfare.  My position on these matters is that I should never turn down a campus visit: it's a chance to make myself a little more visible to colleagues, and possibly seed the ground for a tenure-track job that might crop up a few years down the line.  And you never know, after all: maybe this other place will not only offer me the job, but will offer a salary so high that it would compensate for moving expenses and general aggravations of resettlement. 

I told my chair about this other possibility when zi let me know the good news that I need not go unemployed for next year.  It sounds like I can do the campus visit and wait at least a bit to hear from the other place before giving a final decision to Ghosttown U.  Given the practical constraints of a contract at a public university, I doubt there's much room for horse-trading here, but I'll see if I can use the competing opportunity as (modest) leverage for a salary increase.

I definitely have mixed feelings about staying in Ghosttown for another year, but ultimately, when I look at the cost-benefit analysis in terms of my professional development, it pretty much makes the most sense.  I'd have minimal summertime costs, since I wouldn't be moving.  I'd have virtually no prep work to do, since my courses would be just the same as this year.  I'd have plenty of time, relatively speaking, to work on my publications.  (That would definitely not be the case with the other job.)  It would be useful to build up some positive reputation with a university department as a faculty member, rather than as a grad student.  As much as I gripe (and will probably continue to gripe) about Ghosttown and its discontents, there's something to be said for the professional benefits.

On a side note, it seems that Haphazard Musings and I continue to follow parallel tracks in our respective careers.  Eerie, right?

And no, none of this is an April Fool's joke.  I gave those up years ago.  Long story.

An up note?

Go figure: after giving what I thought was an uneven telephone interview not long ago, I've been invited to a campus visit by another university.  This would be the first time that I've received such an invitation during this current job cycle.  I gotta say, I sure hope I don't fuck this up.

Oh academia, you make my head spin.

Music as emotional gloss

Yeah, it's another one of those unbloggable times.

On the plus side, I just discovered this guy, Bhi Bhiman, tonight.  Why isn't this dude a big star already?

Identity issues over spring break

I've been doing my best to enjoy my spring break this week, chiefly eating too much, drinking a little too much, and sleeping until I wake up, rather than with an alarm clock.  (The last aspect is surely the sweetest!)  Even with beautiful weather and the occasional night out with friends, it's hard to feel too comfortable.  As a number of my colleagues have reminded me lately, this is just a shitty time of year for an academic on the job market.  Tons of rejections come rolling in, almost no good news comes in, and the season tends to bring an extra-heavy dose of anxiety and self-doubt.  For someone like me, who has wanted to be a professional academic for almost twenty years now, it's hard to confront the possibility that no job at all is in the offing for this year...or maybe ever.

Earlier this week, Haphazard Musings posted her conclusion that it may be time for her to leave the academic job market and look for some other career, if she doesn't land anything this cycle.  I didn't even comment on her blog about it, due to the existential horror the idea inspired in me.  I've been thinking about it a good bit, though, and I can certainly understand her analysis of the situation.  It's always hard to figure out where I stand on such matters, since I'm torn between my instinct to support a friend's decision ("follow your heart!") and my instinct to offer encouragement on a tough path ("stick with it, things will turn around!"). 

It's also hard to figure out where I stand in my own situation, since I'm essentially in the same boat as Hap.  Well, not precisely: she and I graduated at the same time, but we have done slightly different post-doc gigs, and there are also some big disciplinary differences between pseudology and culinary psychology.  Speaking only for myself, I feel like I cannot yet walk away from academia in good conscience, even if I don't get a job for next year at one university or another.  If all goes well (fingers crossed!) with the book manuscript, I'll be able to approach next year's job cycle with a contract to my name, and also won't have to run after my old supervisor quite so hard to get hir to cough up a letter of reference.  The lack of both those things hurt me in this year's cycle, I'm pretty sure.  If I can line up both contract and supervisor letter for the fall, then I'll feel girded for battle.

Of course, that raises the question of what I will do if I'm still academically unemployed in a year from now.  I have a hard time admitting to myself that I might have to find a different kind of job altogether, since so much of my identity is wrapped up in being a scholar and teacher.  It's deeply demoralizing to me to contemplate not being a professor somewhere.  But of course, I would need to find something: I have no safety net.  My savings are trivial, I have no significant other who could support me through a rough patch of job hunting, and with the sky falling on my family back in Hometown, there's no one else who could take me in.  I'm on my own.

So, since I can't pay my rent or my grocery bill with self-satisfaction, I'm branching out in my job search.  I'm still trying to land an academic gig, but I'm extending my hunt into the non-academic realm.  The downside of this is that there isn't even a proper Starbucks in Ghosttown, so my erstwhile job of last resort from back in my diss-writing days isn't a practical option.  The upside is that, now that I have my doctorate and am relatively mobile, I might have a chance at landing a job in the world's most lucrative swamp.  I don't exactly relish the idea, but it's a damn sight better than sitting around in miserable poverty and bemoaning the fact that I didn't get hired by a university.  Good thing I still own a suit.

Needs more drunk accordionist

I went out last night and had a few drinks to celebrate sending out my manuscript, like Sisyphus suggested.  I had plenty (plenty!) to eat, and I drank pints of water too, so I'm not wrecked today.  I'm not feeling quite my physical best, but I've certainly had worse hangovers.

Usually, a hangover comes with a certain amount of regret and self-loathing — a fact which, as it appears, has some biochemical basis to it far beyond my idiosyncratic perceptions.  Today, though, I'm still so relieved to have that manuscript off my to-do list for the moment that I'm smiling through the mild fuzziness in my head.  I even wore a purple shirt today, because it's awesome and I feel like communicating awesomeness.

Don't you think everyone should?

Manuscript is in the mail

I mailed my book manuscript today to the editor who's been expressing interest.  I think it could stand to be another 5000 words longer, but it's close enough – check out that word count meter, people! – that I decided it was better to mail it on deadline than to hem and haw for another few weeks while fine-tuning the shorter chapters.  Surely it would not be a good precedent to set for myself by dawdling on deadlines when the editor (...and outside readers?) understand that things will need to be tweaked anyway.

I hope they like it.  :O

P.S. to Dr. Crazy: You and I totally need to hit some concerts together.  I'm in for half the gas money.  :D