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Waiting for the Double Ring

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By James M. Lang

Although I hate telephone interviews, they are better than no interviews at all, so I was happy enough when I found myself with two telephone interviews this past January for tenure-track jobs in English literature.

One position was at a small liberal-arts college on the East Coast, and entailed teaching courses both in my specialty (20th-century British literature) and in composition and general literature. The other was at a comprehensive university in the Midwest, and offered the opportunity to teach this same range of courses, as well as graduate courses in the M.A. program.

These two interviews were vastly different. My conversation with two senior faculty members from Liberal Arts College was extremely pleasant, focusing on my approach to teaching and on my interest in moving from my current position to the small-college environment. I felt at ease. They seemed impressed with my answers, and I was excited by their enthusiasm for the college and their genuine interest in my candidacy.

I was informed in advance that the interview with Comprehensive U. would be entirely scripted: I was to be asked four questions, and I would have 20 minutes to answer them. The interview proceeded precisely along those lines: three questions on various teaching issues, one on my research. I was dissatisfied with one of my answers, and the interviewers gave me almost no feedback or follow-up to any of my responses. They had also forewarned me that my interview would be recorded for others in the department to listen to, and I couldn't help feeling as if I were being interviewed by tape recorders.

I was absolutely convinced that I would get a campus interview at Liberal Arts College, and that I would not get one at Comprehensive U. And indeed, several weeks later I found myself with an invitation for a campus visit to Liberal Arts College.

Back in October, when I had first identified the dozen or so colleges I would apply to in this year's job-market season, Liberal Arts College had ranked right at the top of both my and my wife's lists of prospects. We were intrigued by the prospect of life in New England, and the size and mission of the school fit well with my particular interests and strengths as a candidate. My telephone interview had confirmed my initially positive impressions and piqued my interest further.

So I prepared for the interview. And prepared. And prepared. And overprepared. And then prepared some more.

I re-examined all of the materials I had sent them throughout the application process, drew up reading lists for the courses I might teach, wrote down any and every question I might expect to be asked and took notes on potential answers, planned out to the last detail the 30-minute teaching demonstration I had been asked to give and practiced it three times: once on a close friend over the phone, once on my wife, and one final time to the television in my hotel room the night before the interview.

The day of the interview was without a doubt the most intellectually exhausting day of my life. I had prepared so thoroughly that I encountered very few surprises, but the strain of remaining intellectually attentive for nearly 12 hours -- from a morning meeting with the chair through a long dinner with three faculty members -- left my brain in a near comatose state.

It was mostly a day of informal and friendly conversations and meals, with only two sessions that resembled conventional interviews. In the first of those, the provost sat me down in his office and greeted me with a two-word question: "Why literature?" I have actually given this question a good deal of thought -- as had the provost, evidently -- and so quickly found myself in a passionate and occasionally almost heated discussion about the special place which the study of literature has in the liberal-arts curriculum. Though challenging, I found myself enjoying this discussion.

In the late afternoon, I interviewed with the entire department, several members of the search committee from other departments, and three or four students -- some 15 to 20 people total. Again my preparation paid off, and I felt comfortable and confident -- though tired -- during this 45-minute session.

Throughout the day everyone was friendly and inviting, assured me that I would find a comfortable and collegial environment there, and allayed all of my questions and concerns.

Still, by the time dinner wrapped up that evening I probably could not have recollected my name if someone had asked it of me. I staggered into the hotel and called my wife to share the news that the day had gone well -- at which point she let me know that Comprehensive U. had called that morning to invite me for a campus interview.

I could barely take in the news. I flopped onto my hotel-room bed for a couple of hours and read through half a novel, and then headed down to the hotel bar to have a beer and let the day sink away. There weren't many customers in the bar, and after a while the bartender and I struck up a conversation.

She was from Puerto Rico, and had moved to New England for her job in marketing -- she tended bar one night a week for fun. She told me what an adjustment the weather had been at first, but how she had grown to love the city and its seasons and especially the winter. Her fiancé owned a snowmobile, and on winter weekends they took it into the nearby mountains and snowmobiled and skied and stayed overnight in bed and breakfasts. She loved it there now, she said, and couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

Our conversation really began to help me imagine what it would be like to pick up and start a new life in that city. I've been anxious throughout my job search about the prospect of having to leave Chicago, a city I've really grown to love. But that evening in the bar, as I talked to the bartender and reviewed the day's events, it was as if a switch was turned in my mind, and I suddenly became able to envision in rich detail the prospect of life as a faculty member at a small liberal-arts college in New England -- and I was enchanted by what I saw.

By the time I made my way to bed that evening, I wanted that job very badly. But I did not yet have it, so when I got home I called Comprehensive U. and scheduled my campus interview for the following week. Reluctantly I began to piece together my job talk, and to rehearse again my responses to all the likely interview questions.

I didn't get much work done that week -- I spent most of my time at the office listening for double-ring calls on the main office telephone line. All of the telephone lines at my office indicate internal calls by a single ring, and off-campus calls by a double ring. Throughout that week, each time I heard a double-ring call on the main line, I stopped whatever I was doing and waited to see if someone would be transferring to me a call from the search committee chair of Liberal Arts College.

For most of the week, this meant lots of interrupted work and a daily routine of a hundred little heartbreaks.

But on Thursday, that double-ring call finally came for me.