Rocking the Passive Voice XX

In case anyone's missed it, people have been talking about the PFO we all got from Princeton. Here, read the whole thing:

Dear Applicant,

Once again I resort to a form letter, this time to report that the committee charged with selecting a manageable number of junior candidates from the ~291 junior applicants for the positions that we have advertised have completed their work. They have selected a number of candidates from among whom they hope very much to make one or two appointments (one, should we decide to try to fill one position a the senior level).

I am sorry to report that you are not in this group. We are painfully aware of the difficulty and unreliability of these choices, but they must be made nevertheless. Although it is far from certain we will succeed in our present attempts, we wanted to let you know where you stood so that you may take full advantage of the other opportunities that will surely arise for you in the coming weeks. Needless to say, I will let you know right away should we have occasion to reconsider your candidacy.

Once more, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for the opportunity to consider your candidacy.

Sincerely yours,

Etc.

There's actually a couple of things here I like. One, the letter thanks me for applying. Now, it could be better. The best PFOs thank applicants for taking the time to apply. There's a cost to applying to jobs, and it's a sign of minimal respect to acknowledge that explcitly. And there's also a certain ridiculousness in Princeton thanking me "for the opportunity to consider" me for a job. That turn of phrase seems pretty gratuitous. But fuck it. Any thanks at all is more than some PFOs give, so I'll take it.

The other thing I like is the acknowledgment that the process is "unreliable." Word. It's a fucking crap shoot. Now of course, what's not getting said here is, in the absence of reliable ways of making good hiring decisions, lots of search committees rely on plainly anti-meritocratic heuristics, like counting the rank of your department and the fame of your advisor above all else. (Troll repellent: I'm not the one saying this is true. I'm getting it from search committee members who, giddy with man-crushes on famous philosophers, let that sad little part of their id out to play in public.) I'm not saying Princeton does that, but it'd also be pretty fucking shocking if those biases didn't creep in to the process for everyone, even just a little bit, and even at the best department in the business. Anyway, while the Princeton letter doesn't get into that ugliness, it does at least admit there's a real element of arbitrariness in the job market.

Of course, I also have to note the passive voice here. Here's the key sentence, one more time: "We are painfully aware of the difficulty and unreliability of these choices, but they must be made nevertheless." So Princeton's "painfully aware of the difficulty and unreliability of these choices". Great. As I say, that's nice of them to admit. But the author of the sentence slips out the back door so as not to be around for anything so distasteful as making choices. Better to just leave those to be made.

Bonus comedy: In comments, Anon. 2:16 flags this clause: "Although it is far from certain we will succeed in our present attempts [to hire someone]. . .", and responds, no doubt with a sentiment all of us can share, "Go, Princeton! We're pulling for you, you lovable underdog!"

Rocking the Passive Voice XIX

Okay, I didn't think I was going to write any more of these this season, since what the fuck else do I have to say about all the PFOs I got last year? And this one isn't even mine, but I'm two beers into relaxing after a day of interview prep and this is just way too awesome not to pass along, so what the fuck.

In comments, Anon. 4:04 says,

One of the mailed [PFOs] referred to the "APA meeting in Washington DC this year" -- it's lovely to know that it was just cut & pasted from last year's PFOs.

For the civilians reading along from home, the APA is in Baltimore this year. It was in Washington last year. Whoever wrote this piece of shit PFO recycled their department's old copy to make a "new" letter and forgot to change the name of the city. Holy fuck, that is one weak-ass PFO.

Rocking the Passive Voice XVIII

It's been too long, hasn't it? Take a look at this PFO:

We regret to inform you, however, that you did not make our list of finalists.

This sentence was constructed with stunning artfulness. It's as passive as any sentence with the passive voice. (Who's decision was it not to put me on the finalist list? Who's responsible for telling me to fuck off?) And yet the sentence doesn't actually use the passive voice. This could be a revolution in PFO style.

But then the letter goes and blows all that painstakingly crafted passivity, when it says,

We. . . . hope that our decision will not discourage you as you continue on in the job market process.

Their decision? You mean, it didn't just happen? How'd they let that tiny ray of honesty find it's way out of the letter?

Oh, and for the record, this PFO didn't discourage me at all. I mean, the other 85 pushed me into a months-long depression, but this one made me feel like a million fucking bucks.

Rocking the Passive Voice XVII

Guess what turned up in my inbox on Friday? A PFO! I guess the department that sent it wanted to get their rejection e-mails out of the way before, you know, the Labor Day weekend. That's like, what? 10 months between the application deadline and the rejection?

But I bet I know why it took so long. Someone obviously put a lot of thought into it:

Thank you for your interest in the following position:

Position Title: Assistant Professor
Posting Number: [blah, blah, blah]
Department: Philosophy

Your application has been reviewed and based on our current pool of applicants, you will not be considered for an interview at this time.

We appreciate your interest in this position and we wish you well in locating the opportunity you desire. We invite you to log on to http://blah.blah.edu to apply for other job opportunities at [C]SU for which you feel you qualify.

[Crappy] State University

Not having a salutation of any kind is pretty awesome, but what makes this PFO super-awesome is the way it's just signed with the school's name instead of a real person's. Now that's class.

Update: In comments, himself puts a positive spin on how late this PFO was: "[w]hen universities send you rejections before they've interviewed applicants, that's when they're really telling you to get fucked." Fair point.

Rocking the Passive Voice XVI

A while back I flagged the way the word "unable" gets used in PFOs. As in, "we regret that we are unable to blah blah blah." But the PFO I was talking about was for a piece of writing, not a job application, and at the time I couldn't remember having seen any "unable" PFOs in my thick, thick stack of PFOs for jobs.

Well, seek and ye shall find! There are so many fucking PFOs in my collection, I'm sure I've got at least one of every kind. So here's some sweet "unable" action:

Hello,

Many thanks for your interest in the advertised tenure-track position in the Department of [Blah, Blah, Blah]. Our search process is now complete, and we are unable to offer you a position at this time. We are grateful for the opportunity to consider your credentials, and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Best wishes,

[Blah, Blah, Blah].

First, it's always nice to see the effort they've put into personalizing the form e-mail. "Hello." Last time I checked, that wasn't my fucking name. And this comes from a department with a pretty serious reputation for various kinds of formal philosophy. You'd think there'd be someone around who could figure out the mail merge. I guess not, though. Apparently, they're all still learning how to do e-mails.

But of course here's the real action: "Our search process is now complete, and we are unable to offer you a position at this time." I suppose in some sense they would be unable to offer me a position if they've finished their search process and hired someone. It's not like their deans are likely to let them hire me on top of whoever else they got. But then again, they don't actually say they've hired anyone. Is the search now complete because it was unsuccessful and called off? We might never know.

But suppose they did hire someone. Then really, that little "unable" claim is complete and total bullshit. (I know. I'm as shocked as you are.) There wasn't any unstoppable power keeping them from hiring me instead of whoever else they hired. So in fact, the the truth is the exact opposite of what they say: they we perfectly able to give me a job. They just chose not to. Why not just fucking say that? Is it so hard to own up to?

Rocking the Passive Voice XV

Okay kids, it's time to rock the passive voice:

Dear Applicant,

We have now filled the position that you applied for in our department. We want to thank you for sending us your materials and wish you the best in your future career.

Regards,
[blah blah blah]
Professor and Chair

Of course, there's no actual passive voice here, but don't let that fool you. This PFO goes Beyond the Passive Voice. It's so fucking passive is doesn't even say I'm being rejected. Mining that little nugget of information is left as an exercise to the reader. I'd say they should have the balls to tell it to my face, but they don't even need that, for fuck's sake. All they need is the balls to tell it to me in a fucking e-mail.

Also, just because you capitalize the "a" in "Applicant," that doesn't make it a name, much less my name. If you want me to really feel your "best wishes" in my future career? You might want to get your secretary to figure out how to do a fucking mail merge.

Rocking the Passive Voice XIV

I haven't really been looking all that closely at the envelopes my PFOs come in. Maybe I should though, since it turns out the address labels can contain interesting details.

Like, for example, I received a PFO addressed to someone with my last name, but with the first name Karen. I'm not a Karen, mainly because I'm a guy.

I wonder if that's the sort of care and attentiveness these letters are talking about they go on and on about how seriously my application was considered before it got dumped in the garbage on top of a pile of old coffee grinds?

Rocking the Passive Voice XIII

Alright, here's another PFO:

Our Hiring Committee determined that some other candidates made a better fit with the current needs of the department.

There's no passivity there at all. Sure, there's some weird and unnecessary capitilization, but there's no passivity. I mean, this PFO is remarkably forthright about taking responsibility for rejecting me.

So why am I telling you about it? Because it's from the one school that both me and the future Dr. Mrs. Dr. PGS applied to. That was our one chance last year of ending up in the same city for the long term. So this one hurts a lot more than most.

Rocking the Passive Voive XII

I've got an impressive feast of shitty Chinese food in front of me right now, but it's still too hot to eat. So while it cools, let me fill you in on a short exchange I had over the weekend with a PJMB friend and former roommate. He got a PFO about wrting a paper for an anthology, and it included these sentences:

We received an overwhelming number of fine proposals, but space and overlap of subject matter limits us from accepting all of them. We are sorry to inform you that for these reasons we are unable to accept your paper.

Now, my friend points out that the second sentence is, strictly speaking, in the active voice. And yet the sense of passivity is unmistakable.

Think about the phrase, "we are unable to accept." Unable? As in, can't? As in, it's not in their power to accept the paper? Obviously, that's complete bullshit. They could accept the paper if they wanted to. They're the editors of the antholgy, for fuck's sake, they can do what they want. But "unable," if you squint the right way and don't think too hard about it, kinda sorta makes it seem like it's not their fault. Which of course is the whole point.

I think my tofu's cooled off enough to eat.

Chinese Dinner Update: A philosopher couldn't ask for better fortune than this. My fortune cookie says I "have an ability to sense and know higher truth." I feel like I should put that on my CV or something.

Rocking the Passive Voice XI*

The asterisk in the title means I'm doing rigorous analytic philosophy. Because when you make simple ideas needlessly obsure by sticking asterisks and primes and acronyms into them, that means you've developed the ideas rigorously.

Anyway, I realized there was something else I had to mention about that PFO from yesterday's post. Here's the PFO again, in case you missed it:

Thank you very much for your interest in our open-rank positions this year (JFP vol. 171, positions [#] and [#]). We wanted to let you know that we have now filled both positions from an extremely impressive pool of applicants.

Please accept our best wishes for your future endeavors.

[So and so]
Professor and Chair
Department of Philosophy
[Fancy pants] University.

That's the whole thing. Notice anything missing? There's no "Dear Mr. PGS." There's no salutation of any kind.

That's really fucking shabby. I mean, the least they could do--and I mean least--is to get a work-study student to plug names into the form e-mail. But I guess not. If the work-study student was doing that, there might have been a whole hour when professors ran the risk of having to do their own photocopying. And god knows that's more important that acknowledging the personhood of job applicants.

Rocking the Passive Voice XI

It's a Saturday night grading marathon here at PJMB World Headquarters. Why? Because that's just how we roll around here. But let's a take break from all that for a little passive voice:

Thank you very much for your interest in our open-rank positions this year (JFP vol. 171, positions [#] and [#]). We wanted to let you know that we have now filled both positions from an extremely impressive pool of applicants.

Please accept our best wishes for your future endeavors.

But wait just one god-damned minute. It reads so smoothly. It doesn't sound sound like shitty undergraduate prose. What's going on here? Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, there's no passive voice here at all!

No, indeed. This PFO goes beyond the passive voice. Clumsy auxiliary verbs simply cannot capture this degree of passivity. No, whoever wrote this letter is so fucking passive, he didn't even say he was rejecting me. That "Please accept our best blah, blah, blah"? That's just like when that girl you liked ended your date by saying nothing but, "Well, have a great rest of the summer!"--right before she slamed her door in your face.

Rocking the Passive Voice X

I can still get a little overwhelmed at just how many of these things I have:

I regret to inform you that the position in philosophy was offered to another candidate and that person has accepted the offer. We do not anticipate another opening in the near future.

It's one thing to get a rejection from a good, or even passable department. But so many of them, like this one, come from nameless little shit holes that no one's ever heard of in the middle of nowhere. God damn.

Rocking the Passive Voice IX

Guess what turned up in my mail today? A PFO! I thought I'd got the last of them, what with the decision to toss my application having been made almost six months ago. Anyway, let's see what passive voice we've got here:

I am writing to let you know that we have completed our search, and that you are no longer under consideration.

There's really a couple different things you could say about this. One is, if they've just told me they completed their search, they don't need to tell me I am no longer under consideration. See, what "we have completed our search" means is that no one is under consideration any more, because all the consideration is over.

The other thing is the weird switch from active to passive in the middle of the sentence. It's like there's someone doing the action right up to the moment where things get awkward, and then they very discreetly bow out of the sentence to let events unfold without them.

Rocking the Passive Voice VIII

How long’s it been since we did one of these, huh? Too long. So let’s see what we can do for fans of the passive voice.

I am sorry to inform you that you were not placed on the short list for this position.

That’s it. That’s the PFO sentence. But this letter is dated in late April. If “short-list” means the people they interviewed at the APA, I already know I didn’t make it onto the list. Those interviews were in December for fuck’s sake. And if it means the people they brought out for campus interviews, I already know that too. Because I didn’t get a first-round interview, did I?

What is it about writing these letters that turns philosophers into semi-coherent retards?

Rocking the Passive Voice VII

Okay, as promised, check this out:

Dear [PGS]

Thank you for your interest in the Assistant Professor position in the Philosophy Program at the University of [. . . .]. Our search has been successfully completed, but we thank you for your interest in this position and we wish you the very best.

Sincerely,

Dr. [. . . .]

That’s it. That’s the whole PFO. Notice anything missing? It never says they’re rejecting me. I mean, they’ve still got some passive voice, because god knows they can’t take responsibility in print for completing their own search, but they never say anything about rejecting me. They make you read between the fucking lines to get the point of the letter. It’s an exercise in fucking hermeneutics.

The funny thing is, this isn’t that uncommon. It’s Beyond the Passive Voice.

Rocking the Passive Voice VI

How about this for reassuring?

I can assure you that your application was read with attention and evaluated carefully.

Really? I suppose so, if by “your application was read with attention” you mean “someone glanced briefly at our AOS,” and by “evaluated carefully” you mean “we tossed it in the recycling bin after 45 seconds.”

And just because that wasn’t enough passive voice. . .

In this case, however, you were not among those finalists for the position who were invited to campus.

Um, I know that. Want to know how I know? You didn’t fucking interview me at the APA, assholes.

Rocking the Passive Voice V

I’m never going to get through these if I don’t pick up the pace.

Thanks you for your interest in the rank open position in our department. I’m sorry to have to tell you the that position has now been filled.

The first thing to notice is the obvious lie involved in this person expressing regret about filling the department’s position. Of course he’s not sorry about that at all.

I know, I know. You’ll say he’s really just expressing regret that he has to tell me about it. But is that any better? It just means that, literally, this sentence expresses the guy’s regret that he happens to have a shitty job to do—namely, telling me that I didn’t get any job at all. Wow, that must be really hard for him, the poor fucker. I’m sure you all feel as sorry for him as I do.

But there’s also something else in this letter. Notice the gibberish in the first sentence. What the fuck is a “rank open position”? It’s nothing, of course. Absolutely nothing. I know what an “open rank position” would be, and I know what a “junior rank, open position” would be. But this neither of those. This is just a meaningless string of words written by a fucktard too lazy to proofread the PFO he’s sending to over 300 losers.

Rocking the Passive Voice IV

Here's a really nice illustration of how the passive voice functions as the perfect grammatical context for offensively condescending bullshit. Which is, of course, the whole point.

It is unfortunate that you could not be included among our finalists.

Let's take this step by step. First, the passive voice, and with it, the grammatical implication that no one in particular made the decision not to interview me. In fact, "decision" isn't even the right word here, is it? Since no one actually did anything, it’s more like. . . an event. It just happened. It was a matter of fate or, if you will, fortune.

This is stupid, obviously. But once you start thinking about who did what and why, the sentence loses even its thin veneer of meaning. Who, exactly, is it unfortunate for than I didn't get an interview? Not this department. They didn't want to interview me, and it's no misfortune not to conduct interviews with candidates you're not interested in anyway. So that leaves me. They're telling me it's unfortunate for me that they didn't give me an interview.

Know what? I know that, assholes. I'm not so fucking stupid that you have to tell me it's unfortunate you didn't give me a fucking interview.

Rocking the Passive Voice III

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled:

Our Search Committee for our advertised positions has met and, with difficulty, made their decisions. I am sorry to have to report that you were not selected. That in no way implies a negative judgment of your talents, accomplishments, or promise in philosophy.

Seriously? Your stone cold rejection of me in no way implies a negative judgment of my talents and all that other shit? So, like, I could be the next fucking Saul Kripke (except, you know, without the panty sniffing), and you still wouldn't say, "Fuck it. We can get an ethicist next time around"? Seriously?

Rocking the Passive Voice II

Here's another choice bit from one of my many, many rejection letters:

At this stage, the department has focused its attention on a small number of candidates who have already been invited to campus. As a result, your application is no longer under active review.

So, I guess my application is now under inactive review? That'll take some time, I bet, what with all the inactivity involved.