Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

True story. Yesterday, not moments after after I posted about that paper I've got out under review, I heard back from someone whose comments on that paper I'd been waiting for for a couple of months. Let's call him International Big Time, because that's what he is. Just getting this guy to read my paper involved my supervisor brokering a deal with him and, I have to assume, calling in some chits. Now, I happen to think his philosophy is the shit, so I was eager to see these comments. Imagine my delight--and gut-clenching anxiety--when I saw an e-mail from him waiting in my inbox.

No luck, though. It turns out International Big Time had attached the wrong document. He didn't send me his comments, he sent me a letter obviously intended for the chair of my department. So. Now I happen to know that International Big Time is engaged is some bare-knuckle negotiations about the possibility of moving to my department, or possibly moving to one of two other, much better-ranked departments. I am really, really not supposed to know this. My department keeps hiring and tenure information in a cone of silence. We find out when we've made a hire or a promotion by looking for announcements on the department website. (You'd think a hire or a promotion would warrant an e-mail sent around the department list, wouldn't you? Me too. But not our chair.)

And I am really, really, really not supposed to know what kind of money is getting talked about in these negotiations. This is the part that really kills me. International Big Time is negotiating three different job offers, and the amount of money he's talking about is staggering.

I guess for some, the job market's what Marlo would call one of them good problems. Me, right now, I just want to see this guy's comments on my paper.

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