Saturday, June 14, 2008

More stragglers: are they insane?

I interviewed for this postdoc in the first half of April at a mid-ranked, well-funded school in a good location. I emailed with them as I was about to accept the postdoc that I accepted, and they said they would get back to me that Friday. They didn't. I didn't push it, especially since they had reason to turn me down.


More than two months later, on June 13 after 8 pm, I get the following email:


Our training committee (re postdocs and predocs) was just able to meet since so many things have been happening around here lately. I was wondering what your current status is. Have you accepted a position somewhere?


What is wrong with them?

Update: I got an email that was accidentally meant to be sent by the faculty member running the research center to the administrator:


I think that is for the best. I didn't call her after that meeting because we still hadn't decided and had a lot of questions. So let's look at someone who has a definite fit. Ideas from recent applicants?


Followed shortly by a retraction:


Hi New Postdoc. I just noticed that my reply to [the administrator] got sent to you instead. That's okay. I wish you the very best. The note to [the administrator] was about searching for candidates with a more specific [subject area] focus, since that is what the training grant requires.

2 comments:

P said...

My guess..they were after someone else. That didn't work out. So they decided to try their luck with you. They are not insane..they are tactless and don't know the importance of being nice to others.

Your guy's story scared me a lot. I'm moving to a different place for similar reasons!

JZ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.