“God/Universe, please make it clear to me whether I should take this position; please give me an unmistakeable sign,” I thought as I headed to a job interview at what I will call Putrescence University (not its real name).
After a departmental leadership change, I had just retired from 25 years of teaching English at a university in Mississippi, but I was only 49 and not totally used up yet. Though I had sent out several applications, only Putrescence had called and scheduled an on-campus visit.
PU is located in a small industrial town. My wife did not like the look of it. When we got to campus, we noted that the dormitories lining the quadrangle seemed to be actual World War II army barracks. My wife did not like the look of them.
I met with the department Chair and liked him immediately, but his office was tiny, and the windowless, tiny next-door office—potentially mine—had no bookshelves. I didn’t like the look of that. Was I right to be worried, or was I being too shelf-centered? The Chair pointed out I could build my own shelves and then showed me the few he had added to his office. I studied his desk and chair more closely to see if they looked like he had built them, too.
“Where’s your secretary?” I asked, and he explained that he didn’t have one all to himself; he, and the rest of the English department, shared the dean’s secretary down the hall.
Remembering the recent friction back at my former university, I asked if the department was collegial: “Do the English professors get along?”
“Well,” he responded, “I like myself.” He then explained that at that moment he was the only active full-time English professor left amidst a spate of retirements and departures. “I don’t like the sound of that,” I thought to myself.
My wife joined us for a campus tour. First stop: the performing arts center. This PAC was the oddest one I’ve ever seen. It was wide enough, but there were only about a fourth of the rows of seats I expected. The auditorium looked comically truncated. Was it only for short performances? Our host explained that the building donor had gotten PO’d at PU during construction and had cut off funding.
Next stop: the library. When my wife and I entered the library, we noticed plenty of computer stations but did not see many books. We figured the book collection must be on a second floor and we simultaneously looked up to locate it—but there wasn’t any upper floor. The few books on the bottom/only floor were it. Probably Sarah Palin has more books than this library did. “Books and journals are very expensive,” our host explained.
Final stop: the administration building. This was a beautiful old building with a lot of architectural interest. Finally, a positive sign. The building was nice inside, too, but as we walked up the stairs to the second floor, my wife and I were stunned. At the top of the steps was a glassed-in room cram-packed with stuffed African big game animals. But what we noticed first—what nobody climbing the stairs could possibly escape noticing—was the taxidermied head and full neck of a full-grown giraffe mounted in the stairwell. My mouth fell open. “Who would shoot a giraffe and why?” I wondered. Our tour guide explained that one of the university’s biggest benefactors made his support contingent on PU’s keeping all of his still-growing collection of dead animals on prominent display.
It was a relief to exit Giraffic Park, and once outside, we noticed that several white canopies had been pitched nearby and that several workers were spreading dark mulch in the flower beds and alongside the sidewalks. “They’re getting ready for our Founder’s Day celebration tomorrow,” our guide said, and then he took his leave but encouraged us to continue exploring the campus on our own.
The white tents looked really festive, and I said to my wife, “This place has its problems, but the people are nice. Maybe a job here is better than no job at all?”
“Are you serious?” she said.
At this moment I became aware of something that had been creeping up on my consciousness. The air was filled with something, and I didn’t like the smell of it.
“Do you smell that?” I asked my wife.
“Yeah, I smell it. How could I not?”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. It smells like . . . It smells like manure.”
My God, she was right. It did smell like manure. And now we realized that the “mulch” that was being spread all over campus was in fact cow manure. Pretty fresh cow manure. Workers were preparing to celebrate the founding of this university by making the entire campus literally stink.
Exploring on our own, we soon wandered behind the administration building, where we saw it: the mother lode—a fifteen-foot-high pyramidal pile of manure. After a few seconds my wife said, “There’s some symbolism for you, Mr. Literature Teacher. I don’t know how it could be any clearer. This job is one big pile of bullshit.”
Ask and ye shall receive. The Universe had given me my sign.
And it had a sense of humor.
Photo credit: Farzad Sadjadi
(farzadsadjadi.com)
Always listen to the wife. When she tells you not to take a job that would get you out of the house, you know it has to stink.
I did listen. I do listen. That is the secret of my happiness.
Thank you for your words, O most wise one.
The chair who pointed out that you could build your own shelves clearly had his own IKEA of doing things.
He said if I took the job, some assemblies would be required.
So, If they have a football team and they throw around a “pigskin” it’s probably a real pigskin? Not a place to go after tenure.
Right, when they say, “We’ve got game!” they mean game that’s been shot, killed, stuffed, and put on display.