I had occasion this evening to browse through my pictures from a couple of years ago when I came across these two. It doesn't appear that I ever put them up here. A building was being renovated on West 14th St. and the two ghost signs were visible for a few days.
A friend of mine has been interviewing for jobs recently. This reminded me of a couple of job interview stories.
I interviewed for my current job on my birthday, when the job was in Michigan. Exiting I-75 in Saginaw I was almost sideswiped by an enormous customized Chevy van. The adrenaline rush of the near miss had got my mind off the interview and actually calmed me down. I had to meet with a project manager, a line manager and human resources. The first person I talked to was the project manager. We met via video conferencing as he was in Washington. The first words out of his mouth were "You're the guy I want to hire and I control the budget so the rest of the interview is a formality." That also calmed me down.
From that point on my biggest worry was whether I would get back to Bowling Green in time for the Maniac and Glen or Glenda double feature at the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater, which was located two floors below my office. That's the 1934, pre-code exploitation movie Maniac, which must be seen to be believed (note: cat lovers may find a couple scenes too disturbing), and should not be confused with the early 80s slasher flick of the same name.
But the real story I want to tell is about the guy who interviewed to replace me at Bowling Green. The standard procedure is for interviewees to fly into Toledo, where a faculty member picks them up and brings them to BG, getting an extra half-hour of one-on-one conversation. In this case the candidate booked a flight into Detroit and reserved for a rental car. Berry, the head of the environmental studies program explained beforehand that the department wasn't paying for the rental but the guy insisted.
The guy calls Berry around noon, telling him he's arrived at the Detroit airport. Berry says something like "Okay, we'll see you around one-thirty". The candidate pauses and explains that he may be late as he's meeting his mother for lunch in Monroe, which is about 45 miles from the airport. Berry's thinking that's kind of weird, but they guy had impressive credentials and references, and on paper was a good fit with the departmental needs, so I'll cut him some slack.
Guy calls up an hour later. He's about to leave his mother's place and is driving straight to BG. It's a good 45 miles away. Ten minutes later he walks into Berry's office. Now, Berry's an easygoing guy but he doesn't take to having his chain pulled, so he asks the obvious question "How did you get here so fast?"
The guy hems and haws and manages to change the subject.
The rest of the interview goes well. He meets with the faculty and the dean. He gives a class lecture and meets with the students. He gives a seminar for the faculty. He's very personable, the faculty are impressed, the students give him raves. The interview is successful enough that the weird timing thing from the day before has mostly been forgotten.
The candidate and Berry are in Berry's office waiting on some paperwork before the guy leaves. Partly as part of the interview and partly just to make conversation, Berry asks the guy what research he has been doing while on sabbatical that year.
Major hemming and hawing and evasiveness and vagueness and ohmygoodnesslookatthetimeIbetterleaveorI'llmissmyflightbye. He signs the paperwork and is out the door.
After the guy leaves, Berry's head is spinning in an incredulous "what just happened?" mode. He's also pissed because he has to make a hiring recommendation to the dean in a couple of days. Everyone else thinks he was great. Berry's the only person who experienced this guy's weirdness.
So he calls the chair of the candidate's department and asks what the guy has been doing on his sabbatical. The chair corrects Berry slightly, the guy is on leave, not sabbatical. Berry asks again about what research the guy is conducting while not teaching.
Once again, but this time from the chair, much hemming and hawing and evasiveness.
Now Berry's livid, and starts yelling at the chairman. It was months after this all happened that he told me the story and I can still see the anger in his eyes.
The chair finally admits the guy is not on sabbatical, he's on involuntary leave. He's banned from campus because, late one night at the beginning of the semester, he was caught peeking into a woman's dorm.
For the second time.
This picture is from last winter. We did not have a snowstorm yesterday. I forgot to take a picture of the steps looking down from the top yesterday, so I'm using this old photo.
Four years ago today these steps in Morningside Park were also covered with snow. We had a freakish snowstorm where it snowed very intensely for about three hours in the morning. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had had a nagging cold for a couple of weeks. When I woke up that morning it was clear I had something much worse than a cold and had to go to the doctor. Although I moved into the city more than a year earlier I hadn't yet switched doctors. That meant I had to take the bus to work, then drive to Nyack. When I called the doctor's office I was told I could come in but I had to hurry as they were closing early because of the snow. The drive, which would normally take about ten minutes, took half an hour because of the snow. I walked in and the receptionist said "You don't look so good." I went into the examination room and the nurse took my vitals and said "You don't look so good." The doctor concurred with those assessments and said I had the flu and perhaps pneumonia. With prescriptions in hand I headed back to work.
I was not up for driving into the city, so I waited for the 1:45 bus. I was feeling awful. Chills followed by an intense fever. I also hadn't eaten in about a day. A cup of soup from the cafeteria sounded good. I sat in the corner so nobody would bother me. Two people, nice people but I hardly knew them, came over and sat with me. My warnings about not feeling well and being infectious didn't seem to bother them. They sat down and tried to chat with me. While they were talking away I was becoming half-delerious with fever. Had I any energy I would screamed "I've got the flu leave me alone!" The bus was leaving soon so I excused myself.
The ride back to the city took forever because of the snow, but at least I wasn't driving. As we arrived on campus You could say I started getting a bad case of the chills. Walking home I was shaking uncontrollably in my parka, wool sweater, flannel shirt and t-shirt. That's when I got to the top of the stairs above. I took a couple steps down, thinking to myself "these stairs are really slip--" thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa... Now I was shaking from tumbling down a set of stairs in addition to the chills. Nothing was broken but I was pretty sore.
Ah, but the day is not nearly done. When I drop my prescription off at the CVS in my building I notice a great deal of chaos at the prescription counter. They tell me it will be half-an-hour. I go upstairs to rest. An hour later I get up the energy to get the drugs. Another episode of chills starts. On goes the hat, the sweater, the parka etc. even though I barely have to go outside.
Utter chaos is reigning behind the prescription counter. It takes a good fifteen minutes to get to the front of the line. In that time the chills give way to an intense fever. The hat comes off, the parka comes off, the sweater comes off, the flannel shirt gets removed. I'm sweating profusely and my t-shirt is soaked. The woman behind the counter can't find my prescription. She asks the visibly agitated pharmacist, who looks like Newman on Seinfeld. He goes postal.
"Tell him he has to come back later!" He screams, "I can't possibly keep up with all these orders!" Or something to that effect. He was a little stressed. In my diminished capacity I volunteered to return later. I headed upstairs to prepare for my guest.
Yes, a guest. A co-worker who lived in Rockland County had a couple of days of meetings at the UN and had asked several days earlier if he could stay at my place overnight. When he called that afternoon, I mentioned that I was in no shape to be a host but if he wanted to crash on my couch that was okay with me. He arrived with take-out from one of the African restaurants on 116th Street. Greasy lamb and rice to be precise. For the second time that day someone was trying to have a conversation with me while they ate. All I could do was stare at the shimmery lamb and worry that I was about to add stomach flu to my list of ailments. I excused myself, went downstairs to get the medication (thank goodness for shift changes!), returned, pointed my colleague to where I kept the cereal if he wanted breakfast, and went to sleep for a good 14 hours.
Such was my day four years ago today.
I normally wouldn't write about how I go about picking the photos I post and when I post them, as the process is less interesting than the actual posting. I will say that, since I work on a secluded campus outside the city, I don't have much opportunity for daylight photography during the week. Instead, I take a lot of pictures during my weekend wanderings. Then, on Sunday evenings, I pick a few I like, edit them, add the descriptive text, then upload them to typepad. Typepad allows me to schedule when I want the postings to become public. In that way most of my posting for the week is done on Sunday (although I'll often add more posts during the week, and sometimes I'll remove a posting before it goes public).
That said, I took this picture of the double negative sign Sunday morning, the same morning I took the photos of Mount Olivet Baptist Church, while walking to the newstand to get the paper. The photo brought back some high school memories that I thought I would share, so I wrote them up Sunday night and scheduled them to appear this morning. I hope you find this as entertaining as I did, especially if you were momentarily confused and thought Tuesday, not Wednesday, was posting of illiterate sign photographs day.
It can't get no better
In 9th grade Mr. Martin, my English teacher, told us that for every instance we reported of improper grammar or spelling on a public sign or display we would get extra credit points. I remember reading Of Mice and Men and A Tale of Two Cities that semester but I don't remember anyone in our entire class getting any extra credit. In 9th grade we were old enough to realize how small our town was and how few public signs and displays there were. We were disgruntled about the assignment and protested that we never see anything wrong, ever. We thought Mr. Martin's extra credit was impossible to attain. For the rest of my life I will forever be plagued by my extra credit assignment and feel the urge write down a sign misspelling on an index card and bring it in to class the next day.
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