Thursday, March 08, 2007

Unseemly glee

I've been doing a lot of fishing, lately, for information about this year's crop of jobs and job candidates. I had heard through several branches of the grapevine that someone I know had been offered a job by World Famous University--information that suprised and somewhat disgruntled me. I like this person, at least officially. . . but not enough that I was prepared to be truly happy on his/her behalf.

Well. I just learned that my several sources have been wrong: it's not World Famous University's main campus, but a different and less prestigious one (it's not a satellite campus in the classic sense, but it's certainly not the institution that everyone had thought was under discussion).

Is it wrong for me to be vastly pleased by this news?

15 comments:

Tenured Radical said...

Not at all. I think when professional jealousy of someone who you don't like takes a purely private form it is utterly therapeutic. Even when it takes the form of a nasty joke, among friends, over drinks. God knows we need some way of dealing with the way the world distributes its resources and rewards.

TR

Unknown said...

Hee, hee....yes, it's very bad....hee, hee, hee (*couldn't say that with a straight face*) - no, not really!

phd me said...

In a word: no. :)

The Constructivist said...

Heh, it's baaaaaaaaaad. [/'70s blaxploitation voiceover.] (new blogger blocked this at first when I had the pointy brackets--"Your HTML can't be accepted.")

Ancarett said...

Hee! I'd be feeling the same way. (Oh, and I'm sure that this person will go around using the name of WFU as much as possible while neglecting to point out their affiliation with the satellite campus.)

anthony grafton said...

"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little part of me dies"--attributed to Gore Vidal, though some credit Graham Greene.

Anonymous said...

Try channeling it toward publication and course development...

Anonymous said...

Nah, it's perfectly fine, good, even!
I'm reminded of Browning yet again: reach, man, reach, so that (in time) you, too, shall grab!!

Flavia said...

Anon: thanks much for your concern--but I'm quite satisfied with my performance in those departments.

Anonymous said...

*A* post isn't wrong, no, but you do seem to have a disproportionate amount of posts reveling in someone else's loss or resenting someone else's gain.

But it could be worse. You could whine endlessly about having to do any work, a la New Kid.

Hieronimo said...

I don't think Anon understands the tone and genre of blogs. This post, and others like it, are the id speaking. And I for one enjoy hearing it.

Flavia said...

Thanks, H.

And Anon: although it's kind of you to inform me of my character flaws, I think I know them pretty well. I AM a petty, mean-spirited bitch, at least some of the time--and although there are things about myself that I elide on this blog, that isn't one of them.

Perhaps what you need to do is find some blogs that better reflect your own vision of what academic life is or should be.

Anonymous said...

ha! i think i can decode the situation you mean (and think it's also my grad school you might be referring to), and if it is, i am right there being gleeful with you (and even moreso at the huge bitch who failed to even get that after telling us all she'd be a shoe-in).

Anonymous said...

Wow, a drive-by criticism of me on someone else's blog! Nice to know that I'm pissing someone off - I was always a little worried that I was too bland to annoy anyone. :-P

Anonymous said...

Sure, it's wrong, but it makes me like you and your blog that much more.