Update on the Awesome University job

Someone at Awesome University was kind enough to call me unofficially yesterday to fill me in on what's going on with the teaching center director job there.

Without divulging too many details that were offered in confidence, it sounds as if I could very much have had the job--if a difference of opinion between the committee and administrators at AU hadn't led to cancellation of the position. It likely will be relisted next year, but it may be a staff job with teaching responsibilities (much like the one I have now) instead of the dreamy tenure-track faculty job it was.

So that sucks. Big time.

I'll live.

I think the worst of it will hit on Monday when I sit back down at my desk. You know how when you're thinking about a new job, you begin to fantasize about the things you do for your current job that aren't your favorite tasks, and how soon you'll get to leave them behind? Yeah, I had started to do that. So I'll need to refocus on Monday.

At the same time, I'm seeing my current institution as an increasingly unstable place to be, economically speaking, and an increasingly undesirable place to be professionally (see: impending move to cubicle farm, likely furloughs, already frozen salary, likely temporary or permanent cuts in salary).

But the great cosmic wheel of my professional development continues to turn, and another really interesting possibility has fallen into my lap, one outside the academy working with a large coalition of regional cultural institutions. I don't have any connections at this organization, but it does intersect with both my professional experience and--imagine this!--my dissertation research.

Meanwhile, my support system here has kicked into high gear, with friends and colleagues offering assorted e-mails, phone calls, and, yesterday, a good lunch accompanied by some strong, er, lemonade. I'm getting lots of reassurance that I'm "amazing," "a gift," "terrifically talented, imaginative, and thorough," etc., so on balance I guess I'm OK. Thanks for the self-esteem boost, colleagues!