As I woke up on the floor, covered in vomit and wildly disoriented, I had some concern that my job interview was ending badly. I considered that more than once while riding in the ambulance to the nearest emergency room.
For those of us on the academic job market, winter is at once the season of influenza and interviews, though it is especially unlucky to experience both at precisely the same time. I know: I am a graduate student at an Ivy League university who threw up in the middle of an important meeting with a prospective employer.
I am finishing my doctorate in one of the social sciences. I share this account because it is the kind of story that is assumed eventually to be nothing but an apocryphal tale of woe. It is the kind of story that is told to disheartened job seekers returning from a disappointing on-campus interview: "At least you didn't have it as bad as the guy who walked away from a dinner meeting and spewed penne puttanesca across the lobby of the best hotel in town."
What I am not sharing is my real name: I have employed a pseudonym to protect the department that, with any luck, will offer me a job, and may not appreciate being associated with the man who completely ruined the evening of so many local diners.
In other respects, I think my experience thus far on the market has been fairly typical. I have applied for more than two dozen tenure-track positions and am eyeing a few more with later submission deadlines. Last year a friend who won a job at a Midwestern liberal-arts college had to beat 98 other applicants, so it seemed reasonable to adopt the scattershot application approach.
In my case, I learned that more than 100 other candidates applied to a perfect-for-me position in California at a "large public university," a term that is essentially redundant in the fast-growing state. As one of three contenders invited for an interview on the campus, I was feeling more than a little optimistic at my prospects.
For most of the interview, I followed a rather routine itinerary: flying from the East Coast, changing planes in Texas, and finally landing in California. I was well prepared for the job talk. I had loaded my laptop with multiple PowerPoint presentations and practiced my lecture many times in front of diverse audiences. I had done research on the publications of every faculty member in the department and feared no surprises. I had carefully anticipated criticisms of my dissertation and prepared what I hoped would be solid answers to difficult questions.
What I had not anticipated was the need for another set of formal clothes.
Apparently I contracted the illness that struck me down (with impeccably bad timing) at some point after landing in California. As the on-duty emergency-room doctor explained, his town had been hit with a regional outbreak of an unbelievably virulent gastrointestinal bug. During the previous week, his emergency room had admitted three to four cases a night with the same symptoms, including patients who suddenly lost consciousness as the flu delivered its opening salvo.
In retrospect, I was a perfect target for the supercharged virus. I was (a) exhausted from trying to finish my dissertation, submit job applications, and prepare an impressive public performance promoting my research, and (b) a recent arrival who dropped into swarming crowds of Californians in the airport, the hotel, the campus, and the department, including a gaggle of curious grad students.
Over the course of three nights and two days, I met individually with more than a dozen faculty members at appointments that ranged from 20 minutes to a couple of hours. I also met the dean and a few undergraduates who came to my talk, so there is absolutely no way of knowing where I contracted the contagious germ.
What is fortunate is that the illness knocked me out at the very end of the process. I had met all but one person in the department and had delivered the job talk in the early afternoon. All I had left was a dinner appointment with a senior faculty member, and then I could relax.
Following my job talk, I returned to my hotel room happy but fatigued, though a blinding headache prevented all attempts at napping. I rose at 6 p.m. and headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant for my dinner appointment.
We had an excellent conversation. In addition to our academic interests, we discussed everything from local politics to California wines. In fact, I had ordered a glass of a good Sonoma County cabernet sauvignon, but after I took a few sips, it seemed to lose its flavor and stood neglected on the table.
I then noticed that I was also ignoring my entree, a rich pasta loaded with garlic, chili, and briny black olives. Finally I understood why the food and drink were unpalatable: I was feeling not at all well.
Just as my host was about to order dessert, I excused myself and stepped unsteadily out of the restaurant and toward the men's room adjacent to the hotel lobby. I never made it to the men's room.
All I remember is the room spinning wildly. Apparently I was unconscious for some time, since the next image I can recall is a crowd of concerned people standing over me -- though no one was standing too close.
I was almost incoherent, but I do recall some inquiry as to whether I was intoxicated. That line of questioning ended upon the intervention of my host, who had been retrieved from the restaurant by a paramedic and explained that I hadn't even finished a glass of wine.
The senior professor was really very gracious and offered to leave my laptop case at the concierge desk, which he did. He looked very worried, though I was oddly serene. I was only upset that the walls would not stop wobbling.
The hotel, decorated beautifully for the holidays, is a popular destination for locals who trek downtown so they can photograph their kids standing in front of a towering Christmas tree. For a moment, however, their attention was drawn by the sight of a well-dressed man being wheeled on a gurney out of the lobby, leaving a distinct whiff of gastric acids in his wake.
At the hospital, the doctor gave me various drugs for nausea, vertigo, and pain, while three bags of saline solution dripped steadily into my left arm. By 3 a.m., I was well enough to be deposited into a taxi. The hospital gave me disposable surgical scrubs to wear since my own clothes were absolutely unmentionable.
The next morning I received a call from the department head, asking about my health and whether I had soured on the city. I had not. I had an otherwise excellent visit, enjoyed meeting the faculty, and was impressed by the graduate students.
As is fair and right, I doubt my dramatic illness will win sympathy votes on the search committee. Still, on a scale of the unexpected, my interview episode ranks not far below spontaneous human combustion. The department might not hire me, but I doubt it will forget me.
