Monday, January 09, 2012

I Really Really Want To Work For You Now

One more Cover Letter entry (I think), and then the voting will commence, tomorrowish. Apparently this is a slightly modified version of a real letter.

Female,
 
I do not understand why you did not reply to my email yesterday.
 
You interviewed me last spring for a postdoc position.  Before you could offer me a position I told you that I did not want to work for you because I wanted to work with BigNameProf  instead and he had offered me an interview too.  It turns out that BigNameProf did not hire me.  I do not understand this either.
 
Anyway, I really, really want to work for you now. I promise to be an amazing postdoc.  I attached my CV in case you do not remember how amazing I am.
 
Sincerely,
I do good research but have no idea how to communicate grad student

7 comments:

Kea said...

One has to wonder how such brains function.

MamaRox said...

What about a contest for the rejection letters you wish you could write in response to some of these? Yeesh. That would be a great stress reliever.

Yael said...

Some undergrads sent me emails like that. All of them were male. Do male professors get this type of email? I suspect not.

Anonymous said...

that someone like this can get a postdoc gives me hope...

SGL said...

Yael - yes - male prof here - I got this almost verbatim. I'd even offered the candidate a position that he accepted, then he backed out to go work for "Famous prof X". He then asked for the position again when Famous Prof X fell through.

Helen Huntingdon said...

My first experiences working with PhD students as an undergrad were with guys who eventually went a bit nutty, and this level of myopic self-absorption was part of the nuttiness.

Paranoia was in there too -- witnessing the whole, "I don't understand why you didn't drop everything to attend to my needs," bit play out in person was something to see. Evidently your not responding the same day means you want to sabotage his research because it's a threat to you (since you obviously can't keep up with his awesomeness, as proved by your failure to drop everything to attend to what he wants).

When I started my own PhD I made a friend swear to slap me upside the head if I ever showed signs of turning out that way.

Anonymous said...

like you said,, no one cares too
That's why we don't need female scientist who spend more time on bogus blog rather than high quality research...shame on you & in your personality,,