Schadenfreude
April 11, 2009
Comrade PhysioProf just found out that one of the people who beat him out during his initial tenure-track job search was just shitcanned after having failed completely to establish a successful research program. I feel bad for this person, but I do not feel bad for the department that failed to take the opportunity to hire me.
Comradde RisottoProffe 
April 11, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Yeah, there’s nothing like a warm glow of “Told you so.”
Can you say anything generally about how you think that department screwed up prioritization on their search? (I’m assuming you don’t think that this candidate was just as good as you….)
April 11, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Sure! They failed to prioritize hiring me!
April 11, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Sure! They failed to prioritize hiring me!
Hahahahaa – that made me laugh out loud!
Stupid fucking dumbfuck hiring committee doesn’t know what the fucking fuck they missed out on. Let them rue the day they let PP slip through their feeble fingers.
Here’s a couple of questions for you just out of interest:
1. Would you have taken the job had it been offered to you? Would you have taken it over your current position?
2. Given the success you’ve had in your current position, do you think you might have done better or worse if you had been hired by the other dumbfuck school?
April 11, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Aw, did you get the warm and fuzzies? (that mental image made me snort my beer)
April 12, 2009 at 11:21 am
Schadenfreude!
April 12, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Mo-fos.
April 12, 2009 at 10:06 pm
The fuckwit who beat me out for head of the department has just had a major paper withdrawn by a journal for plagiarism +++. Maybe I should have used this technique to expand my publications before the selection committee met.
April 14, 2009 at 2:28 am
fuck yeah!
what’s the schadenfreude equivalent of congratulations?
April 16, 2009 at 10:17 pm
What if they come crawling on their hands and knees to you now, what would you say CPP?
April 17, 2009 at 5:25 am
It would depend what they had to offer me.
April 21, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Yo CPP…..Do you think there were obvious differences between the two of you at the time that should have been totally obvious to the search committee? I am involved in this kind of craptastic searching so I always like to hear differential data on winners v. losers.
I picked one dude who was a TOTAL loser…all the rest have been successful.
Doc F
April 21, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I had multiple first authors papers as a post-doc including one in C/N/S and the rest in >7 IF. My mentor was at the time a green assistant professor with no established reputation.
My competition had a single paper as a post-doc (C/N/S), and he was the second-listed “co-first-author”. His mentor was already a member of the NAS.
April 21, 2009 at 6:14 pm
by “shitcanned” do you mean denied tenure?
April 21, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Yep. And required to leave immediately.
April 22, 2009 at 5:49 am
Yeah I would say that is a common theme. Having a senior star mentor is often the (flawed) strategy for recruitment, rather than the actual achievements of the candidate. That’s why I always give advice to my students that weaseling in to the faculty ranks by making yourself indispensable at your current institution, MRU #1, and then transfer the fuck out when you have a modicum of funding success so that you are treated as an adult at MRU #2.
Man, I could not imagine what its like to be shown the door after attempting for tenure…it must be soul-crushing…Oh well, fuck ’em.