It’s been a few weeks since the whole U 48P deal fell through, and I’m starting to get a little bit of a sense of humor about the whole thing. It was really weird telling friends that I was this close to taking a job and moving Jay and me across the country, but, not surprisingly, they were all delighted to know that we had turned the opportunity down. Having time away from work and with friends and family over the holiday helped a lot, and Jay and I started the new year with a sense of optimism and a sigh of relief that we weren’t going to have to move any time soon.
U 48P posted the job again late last week, and I had to note with some irony how much more the additional expense associated with having to re-run the search would be relative to the additional salary and help getting Jay a job would have cost. I know the difference between one-time and ongoing costs well, but they definitely made a bad short-term decision, and I think it will have longer-term costs as well. Failed searches hurt morale and reputation, and, as it appears that they won’t be revising their search strategy, the new search doesn’t stand any better chance of getting a better candidate than me who is willing to come for less. They are almost certain to us optimize, and that’s just not a good strategy for a university with high aspirations. Someone there just doesn’t get it, and I consider myself lucky not to be his chief lieutenant.
So, Jay and I will focus on our life and work on the 38th latitude. In their counteroffer, my bosses at L38U offered to find to try Jay a job, something U 48P was clueless enough to think didn’t matter to me, so there is that possibility to look forward to. I’m also digging into my current job with a little more zeal.
We will leave this part of the country some day, just not this one. Until that day, it’s a very nice place to live, and we intend to enjoy it to it’s as much as we can.
38to48 