As some folks know, I have been awaiting a final determination on an offer of employment. As we spiral rapidly toward the beginning of the new term, the question of whether or not an offer will be made obviously becomes more urgent, and so I’ve been expecting some kind of decision, one way or the other, very soon. Yesterday I was away from the office doing fieldwork – and so, of course, I would get a phone call about the potential offer while I was out… Unfortunately, the message left on my answering machine was positively Delphic:
Hello, this is [X] – I did need to talk to you… I think there’s been a bit of misinformation about your teaching, etc., here. Could you please give me a call?
Since [X] is not reachable over the weekend, I now have to wait until Monday to learn whether [X] is concerned that I might be under the mistaken impression that I have a job, or the mistaken impression that I don’t… Since I have made no assumption in either direction, I haven’t a clue what the call was meant to suggest…
I’m not sure whether I should regard this as a step forward, or a step back, from an email I received from someone else earlier in the week – someone who actually should know more than I do about my status – who wanted to know whether I knew anything about whether I’d been hired.
*sigh*