And just when we thought things were looking up...

[P.S.A. Dark post follows]
TD did not get a job at ANU. Finally, late last night, after 2 1/2 weeks of silence (and after previous weeks of having the Dept. Chair email us regularly to tell us that they'd made X number of offers and TD wasn't one of them, but we still like you so much! And we still see you as one of the likely people to get an offer! And it's not that we wouldn't love to have you as a colleague!!) we heard from the senior person in TD's field that the Chair had decided that, once another candidate in TD's field (but working on totally different things) had signed on, there was no need to hire another. Of course, this decision was made last week and the Chair didn't even have the decency to email to let TD know - he has behaved SO badly (revealing things about one of TD's recommendations that he believed was "pretty bad" and supposedly was holding up TD's getting a job offer. He did this to be "a friend," he said. Only to find out that they were deliberately reading a frank, candid, very British-y letter in the worst possible light). TD had to finally email another professor (the one who'd been so enthusiastic about TD during his visit) to hear the bad news. To this guy's credit, he and the other senior people in TD's field were supporting his candidacy up until the bitter end - they really did want to hire TD. But the Chair had already made his shitty, autocratic, asshole-y decision, so that's that. TD will probably get a form letter of rejection 2 months from now...

What next, you ask? I don't know. We both go out on the market next year to try to find jobs together. I can't imagine that this will have any better odds of working out - this year seemed so fortuitous: 3 job opportunities here for TD and one at Dutchman U for me. Something had to work out, right? I know, I know - don't say I told you so. We do feel pretty led on by ANU, though.

So, I have to plan to try to leave my beloved job, the one that took me three times on the job market to get, the department I love, the colleagues I adore, the new friends I've made, and the university that is planning on making an offer to my best friend this afternoon.

You know what's odd? I have to do so much more work to try to make myself palatable on the job market next year than I would to stay here and continue on in the tenure track. I mean, if I was planning on staying here and just being little tenure-track me, I could spend a good year working hard on my book and cranking out one more article. I've already got plenty of things out or under consideration to sustain me for the next year or two here. BUT, I feel like if I go out on the market, I have to whip my book into better shape by October, get another article out under submission, and be even better than I actually need to be to sustain a good t-t job just in order to (hopefully) get another t-t job near my husband. It's like I need to go on research steroids - God, I'm so tired of having to go on the market...

TD will continue to look at schools in this area, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that we could end up settling in this delightful area, with my family nearby and the rich research and social opportunities for us both. It's just looking very unlikely and I'm afraid that I will take a job that's not as good and become horribly resentful that I have to leave. Or what if I can't even get another job? What if this one is it? Do I adjunct somewhere and give up my career in order to be with TD? Does he?

Sorry folks, I'm rapidly spiraling downwards...