All About the Cats: A Tale of Two Interviews

The thoughts below are about the arbitrary nature of the job search. I opted to add little commentary about the events within the body of the post as to leave the narrative(s) relatively intact. Any job search, but especially the academic job search, is full of unpredictable and often uncontrollable variables: the performance of the other candidates, an unposted expectation or need, a preconceived notion about who is the right candidate. Of course, in both of the experiences below, there were things I could have done differently, but sometimes it really is about something as simple as a cat.

In the spring of 2003, I flew to Louisiana for a graduate school interview. I was about to graduate with a bachelor’s in psychology, and my plan was to enroll directly in a PhD program. I took the GRE, requested transcripts, persuaded my professors to write letters of recommendation over their Christmas break, and sent off my applications right before the deadline. I secured two interviews: one at Baylor and the other at Louisiana State.

The visit to Baylor wasn’t especially memorable except for a parking ticket that I managed to get dismissed as a visitor. Something told me that this wasn’t the opportunity for me.

LSU was more exciting. During my undergraduate, I had completed a summer internship working with adults with intellectual disabilities, and I thought working with this population was my calling. When you apply to a graduate program in clinical psychology, you apply to work with a specific professor, and the one I interviewed with focused on studying and helping this unique group.

I flew into Baton Rouge late in the afternoon and immediately was treated to drinks with the graduate students. I had turned 21 only a few months before, and I wasn’t sure what the protocol was in such situations. I declined an alcoholic drink, playing it off as being tired from the long flight, and had a Coke instead. The bar was loud, and it was hard to hear the group. Later that night, I settled in at my host student’s apartment. She had a pull-out sofa on the living room, and she helped me get settled. We chatted a little bit, and then she asked if I would mind if her kitten stayed in the living space with me: “Her water and her litter box are out there, and I don’t want to keep letting her out to get to them.” Internally, I was thinking about my allergies, but since this was an interview and I didn’t want to make a fuss, I agreed.

My sleep was restless. I thought about all the things I had learned that day and about the more official interviews planned for the following day. I was replaying conversations in my mind as I started to drift off to sleep.

Sometime mid-morning (maybe 2 or 3 AM), something woke me up. I felt a tapping on my arm. “What was that?” I wondered, sleepily. The sensation continued, and I soon realized it was the kitten. She was batting my arm over and over. I tried to soothe her by petting her, but the moment I stopped the batting began again. I considered getting up and shutting the cat in my host’s room or the bathroom. I considered hiding out in the bathroom until morning, but quickly remembered there was only one bathroom in the apartment. I tried to curl under the sheet and thin blanket. Although it was warm and humid, I wished for more covers. By the

time morning came, I was exhausted and covered in small, paw-sized bruises. My eyes were red and swollen, my skin and throat were itchy, and, as I tried to hold back a sneeze, my nose dripped. I felt horrible. I didn’t want to take Benadryl, but at that point I didn’t see another option.

A couple of hours later, I’m sitting across from my potential future mentor. His desk is covered with papers and he’s jotting notes down on a legal pad. I’m trying not to stretch out the hole in my hose that has grown throughout the day or draw attention to the bruises on my arms. I try to formulate a response to one of his questions. The room is tense, and my head is foggy from the pink pills that I gulped down in desperation earlier in the day.

Flash forward a month or so. I open my apartment mailbox to a thin envelope. Inside is a rejection letter – perhaps the only personalized one of my academic career. The committee was impressed by my credentials but was looking for someone with more real-world experience.

Although the reason was listed in the letter, I couldn’t help but wonder if the outcome would have been different if not for the kitten, or the awkward night out with the graduate students, or the hole in my hose.

*****

Fourteen years later, in January 2017, I had finished graduate school—not in psychology but in English. Instead of applying to graduate school, I was now applying for tenure-track professor positions at various schools. I had been offered an interview at a small, liberal arts school in Texas—one to which I had familial connections. This time, the school had flown me into the nearest airport and a potential colleague picked me up. Immediately, she apologized for the dog fur in her car, explaining that she’d had to take the dog to the vet earlier in the day and didn’t have time to vacuum. “No problem,” I said. “I also have dogs, so I get it.” I went on to say that at least it wasn’t cat fur as I’m allergic to them. I may have mentioned the red eyes and the swollen scratches. I remember being pretty clear that I was not a cat person. I was having flashbacks of my interview to Louisiana.

We drove straight to a restaurant in the same small town as the college. The rest of the crew would arrive a little later, but there wasn’t quite enough time to get me checked into the hotel before dinner. We posted up at the bar while we waited for the rest of the crew. I ordered a beer, feeling confident the one drink wouldn’t prevent me from being—and might actually help me be—sociable. My host was friendly, and it was easy to talk. Although I’d been warned about talking about children and even encouraged to skip my engagement ring, my son was only 2 ½ and his well-being was at the top of my priority lists. Plus, others had told me that asking about schools in the area can be a good way to express your seriousness about the position. I took the risk of bringing him up, and the conversation continued to flow.

When the rest of the department showed up, we headed to our table, making quick introductions as we did so. Then the dreaded question: “Tell me about yourself.” I don’t remember exactly how I responded. Everyone ordered more drinks. I nursed the beer I’d ordered earlier at the bar and asked for a water. I scanned the menu and asked what was good.

As the food came, the conversation shifted to pets. I talked about my dogs, Marla and Elbow—an Australian Shepherd and a shelter dog. “Does everyone else have pets?” I asked. Everyone (even the person who’d had dog hair in her car) had cats. They all began to describe the cats in detail as I tried to explain, “It’s not that I don’t like cats. I’m just allergic to them.”

That night in the hotel room, I thought about the conversation. “No big deal,” I thought. I was happy to be staying alone in a hotel and not on someone’s pull out couch. I read back through my lesson plan and watched a bit of HGTV before falling asleep.

The next morning, I woke early and got dressed. I took pictures of myself in the mirror, excited about the new suit that I had purchased the week before. I felt confident and ready. I reorganized the handouts for my two teaching demos: one in English Composition and the other in Shakespeare. One of the committee members picked me up for breakfast tacos before the day officially began.

The teaching demos went well. The students were engaged, the technology worked, and I was proud of the handouts that I had provided. At the end of the day, one of department members dropped me off at the airport. On our drive, I remember him telling me, “I’m happy to help with anything regardless of whether you get the job.” It was the first time that I considered that I might not be working at that college the following year.

At the airport, I ordered a margarita and pondered different futures for myself. My flight was delayed, and I had time to sit and think. Eventually, I jotted down some thank you notes and crossed my fingers that I was getting closer to filling in some of the unknowns about the future.

A few weeks later I received an email. The committee had gone with another candidate. Curious about this mysterious competitor who had won the battle of the job hunt, I searched for the English department announcements. Eventually I found it on Facebook. The new hire was from out of state, she’d been searching for a tenure track job for 7 years, and as it said in the official announcement, she loved cats.

Of course, there are a hundred tiny reasons that each of these opportunities may have not worked. Maybe my age was a factor, maybe my thank you notes were too desperate, maybe my presentations did not challenge the students enough, maybe there was nothing I could have done differently, maybe it was divine intervention preventing me from accepting the wrong opportunity. Shortly after, I ended up at Oklahoma State, a place where I made friends, felt respected, and had the freedom to design honors classes in a variety of subjects.

Or maybe, on some level, it really was all about the cats.