Genre

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Story: What'd I Say?

***

1

“Please order whatever you’d like, Robert.”

Dr. D------ was Academic Vice President and Dean of a small residential college in the upper Midwest. He had decades of experience hiring faculty members and academic administrators. He thought he had seen just about everything.

And then there was the time he and his wife A-- took a library candidate to dinner.

Late one Spring the college was looking for a new Head Librarian. An effective interview process had been pretty well developed by that time. A Search Committee collaborated with the Dean in sifting through the applications received and selecting the top candidates. If a telephone interview and reference checks went smoothly, the Dean would select the three top candidates to actually invite to campus.

The candidate would arrive in time for an informal dinner with Dr. D------ and his wife, who would try to put the candidate at ease and make the point that the college wanted all personnel to succeed. They would also describe as honestly as they could the distinctive features of the position, warts and all, so as to avoid nasty surprises for the candidate the next day.

In this case there was nothing to be concerned about: the new person would be replacing a Head Librarian in good standing who had held the position for 25 years or so and was well-liked. There were no colleagues to warn the candidate about, as there rather often was, which meant that it was important to point out, as Dr. D------ had already done on the telephone, only that this really was a full-time job requiring 50 hours a week or so (and why that was true).

So the process was well-defined, but this particular event occurred at a time before the Internet had become an integral part of every professional activity or undertaking. But it was about to become a regular part of Dr. D------’s hiring routine.

After the dates of the candidates’ interviews were determined, about a week before the day itself came, Dr. D------’s secretary sent to everyone involved in the interview process a copy of the schedule to which a copy of the candidate’s resume was attached. In this case, early in the afternoon on the day when one of the Head Librarian hopefuls was scheduled to arrive, one of the other, current Librarians showed up in Dr. D------’s office.

2

“I thought I ought to show you something,” she said, holding up several printed papers. “To prepare for the interview tomorrow,” she went on, “I thought there would be more to talk about if I could find anything on the Internet about Robert…

“And I found this.”

They were now seated next to each other at Dr. D------’s little conference table. The Librarian placed her papers side-by-side. On the left was Robert’s resume, and on the right was a little stack of papers with a copy of a group photo on top. It was a picture of the staff of a college library in the Northeast. There in the caption, among the other names was “Robert Donald.” Counting from left to right along the row indicated, Dr. D------ identified a young African-American man as the candidate due to arrive later that afternoon.

“It’s not that Robert’s black,” she said, although that had never crossed Dr. D------’s mind.

This library isn’t listed on his resume.”

“Hmmm,” Dr. D------ said, taking this in.

“On the resume,” she went on, “he says he was still working as Reference Librarian at this other college.”

Sure enough, the Northeastern college wasn’t mentioned at all in the resume. The date on the website was only a few months ago, and the end date of his previous job in the Midwest was listed only as the current year, with no month indicated (so – the Dean was thinkng - while leaving out the Northeast connection was peculiar, it wasn’t necessarily damning). Also, Robert’s references at the Midwestern library had given no indication to suggest that what Robert said on his resume was not accurate.

“Now, if you go to the previous page on their website,” she continued, pulling out another sheet, “it says that he was the Head Librarian there. Looks like he would mention that, since he’s applying for a Head Librarian position here.”

Dr. D------ agreed. “I’m glad you showed me this,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be fair to draw any conclusions at all now,” she said, “but I thought you might want to ask him about it.”

“Can you leave all this with me?” Dr. D------ asked.

3

“What would you like to drink?” the waitress asked that night.

Dr. D------ jumped in, saying to the candidate: “Please order whatever you’d like, Robert.” And then to the waitress he said, “Ice water for me. A--?”

“Ice water for me too. No lemon.”

“Sir?” the waitress asked Robert.

“A Coke,” he replied after a second or two. (Ordering a drink, especially hard liquor, would have been a bad sign.)

They were seated in a relatively quiet back table in the neighborhood restaurant near the Dean's home. In the car on the way from the dorm with the VIP rooms where Robert was staying, they had already covered how his air trip had gone, what route he had taken, and that kind of thing. Now all three of them were fingering the bulky menus the hostess had given them as they were being seated, so A-- said (as she often did at this juncture): “We should give you a little time to look over the menu. We come here often and we know it by heart.”

Robert started looking it over. He did not ask, as many do, if his hosts had any recommendations.

“What will you have?” A-- asked her husband.

“The Viener Schnitzle, naturally,” he replied with a smile.

Robert put the menu aside.

The drinks arrived as A-- and Dr. D------ began to go through their usual routine with candidates.

They paused long enough to tell the waitress what they wanted to eat, and then continued with their spiel. Robert listened and smiled whenever they said something intended to be light-hearted. The evening was going normally enough; Robert seemed like a nice enough, intelligent enough, professional enough young man.

4

About halfway through their meal, Dr. D------ leaned a little forward and asked Robert what he knew about the Northeastern college that had published his picture as their Head Librarian.

Robert did not react oddly. He said simply, “Well, it has a good reputation…”

A-- mentioned another topic, and the meal continued. After a short while, Dr. D----- said with his usual sympathetic smile, “I asked you about _______ College a few minutes ago, because I understand you were employed there for a time… But it’s not mentioned on your resume.”

Robert became somewhat more animated and expansive, “Oh, well, you know, in fact I never did work there. I was hired as an intern and I had even moved out there, but it didn’t work out. My wife just wouldn’t move to that little town, you know? So I never actually started.”

“Oh, that must have been awkward,” A-- said.

Dr. D------- chuckled a little and asked, “I suppose that now before you go out on any interview, you and she talk about it first. She wants for you to get this position, I guess?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Robert said. “There is no problem like that. That’s all behind us now.”

Dr. D------ put the website pages on the other side of his plate and took a drink of water. The casual conversation resumed.

5

Fifteen minutes later or so, during coffee, Dr. D------ said, “You know, Robert,” he said. “Here’s a curious thing,” and he showed the younger man the copy of the second website page from the Northeastern college where Robert was identified as Head Librarian. “Head Librarian,” Dr. D------ said.

Robert looked down. “I felt awkward about it,” he admitted. “But after I had moved out there and everything, my wife just said No, she wouldn’t come. I didn’t want to work there while she was still here…” and he looked up at Dr. D------ and included A-- in his glance: “But this time we got that all straightened out beforehand. She is behind me all the way,” he said firmly.

“Good!” A-- said approvingly.

“You see, Robert,” the Dean said, “not mentioning this other position – at least in our conversation on the telephone – makes it seem like you had something to hide. Something serious, I mean.”

“I see,” Robert said, nodding slightly.

6

Twenty minutes later, Dr. D------ got out of the car with Robert outside his dorm, reminding him of the time when a Library colleague would be meeting him the next morning there at the front steps.

Robert got out his interview schedule and peered at it a moment. As they approached the steps he got out a pen and asked for the Dean’s telephone number.

At 7:30 the next morning as A-- was cleaning up after breakfast, the telephone on the kitchen counter rang. The Dean answered.

“Dr. D------,” Robert’s voice said, “I have booked my return flight in an hour this morning, and a taxi is on the way to pick me up.

“You were right, Dr. D----, he said. "You were right.”

“I see, Robert," the Dean replied. "Thank you for calling. Good luck.”

After he had hung up, A-- said, “I told you the interview wouldn’t happen, didn’t I? What did he say?”

“Yes, you did,” her husband replied. “He said I was right.”

***