A colleague who just got a verbal assurance that the tenure-track position she interviewed for is hers asked me what life was like on the tenure-track.
“Wait,” she said in the midst of the conversation. “Do you mean to say that you write these articles or a book without knowing if they will be accepted for publication? You know the entire time that this can all be just a waste of time? There is no guarantee of publication?”
When I confirmed, she stayed silent for a moment and then asked, “Are you sure you really understand how this works? Because the system you describe simply doesn’t make sense.”
Clarissa's Blog 
WTF? She does not know how the process of publishing research articles looks? Based on what did she land a TT position? That sounds like a deal-breaking level of cluelessness to me.
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… and suddenly your colleague stepped into reality. To be continued…
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I’m no Ph.D., but that one left me speechless. Welcome to the real world, Professor.
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maybe she’s gotten this far purely on the basis of patronage
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Oh, there is no maybe about this. You are spot on.
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There’s the actually senseless system.
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Hmmm. Patronage…that’s a nice way of putting it. (Snark factor at play.)
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Patronage. I once had to oversee a summer intern that got the position due to his father’s influence. He was very surprised to learn that no one else in the department had any relatives working in that facility. He asked all of us how we got hired, and the concept of interviewing made no sense to him. To his credit, he worked hard and did a good job.
His father wanted him to learn something that summer. Mission accomplished!
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“If I write it, they will publish it!”
Also, if you build it, they will come, and if you think magical thoughts about day-glo ponies, you will soon be living in your own bespoke My Little Pony story.
At least if she has patronage, she’s learned how to bullshit enough of the people enough of the time to get things done … or so we hope.
Now if you’ll excuse me, one of my neighbours has left a few stray day-glo ponies and the odd unicorm flying around, so I need to find my 12 gauge shotgun and number 4 size shotgun shells … full of magical rock salt, naturally. 🙂
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