Profs to Watch Out For

As the hiring season winds down and the new profs prepare themselves to enter the academy, it might be a good time to share some 'office politics' tips and tricks, to the extent that there are any worth sharing and/or of general application.

In reading an essay in Charles Baxter's, Burning Down the House this weekend, I ran across this description of a faculty member in an English department... 

I once had a rumpled and messy friend who was a colleague where I worked.  The crucial word here is "once".  Most offices have someone around like this person.  He was, for a time, unfailingly helpful to young faculty members.  He invited them for dinner.  A great raconteur and gourmet, he could cook and talk simultaneously and brilliantly.  He loved to help out people who were in a weak position.  In this role, he was lovable.  When they established themselves, when they no longer depended on him, he dropped them.  He invented imaginery crimes that they had committed and wouldn't speak to them and would pass them in the hallways without nodding.... He went away for a year and when he came back he was speaking to almost no one.  ("Maps and Legends of Hell" in Burning Down the House,  2 ed, 2008, p. 130)

Anyone run across this type in law schools?  Any other stereotypes that new profs should avoid or tread carefully around?

Any advice for the unwary?

It's a great profession - goes without saying - but there's office politics like everywhere else.  What do you wish you had known when you started out?

 

Comments

[Mary Dudziak]

Here's one tip I wish someone had given to me: share with your new colleagues any private, personal matters that you would be comfortable seeing in the newspaper. In other words, it will take a while, maybe a year, to figure out who really keeps secrets, and who is lovely and well-meaning, but still a gossip. Over time, try to find at least one senior colleague who you can really confide in.

[not a prof]

I am not an academic - but I have my office politics. The most annoying are the insecure types who are sensitive and defensive to anything they do not want to hear. These types are hard to deal with b/c a conversation has to be on their terms, or you risk them getting offended and ending up in a fight. How do you deal with that sort?

[Jeff Yates]

I think that many offices (academic or otherwise) have had, at one time or another, a character resembling Don Logan from the gangster heist movie "Sexy Beast" (brilliantly portrayed by Ben Kingsley). I'd provide a youtube clip or series of quotes, but none of them are really appropriate for this forum. You really just have to watch the movie. Clearly, such office characters are not exactly like Don, but they approach his demeanor at times. I recall Don's primary tactic for getting to 'yes' as being "You will! You will! You will!" ... but I've probably left out a lot of cursing that was actually in the movie.

[Anon]

It is important to note that faculty meetings are conducted differently from school to school. Don't assume that everyone will be encouraged to be heard. Keep quiet in the beginning and observe the unspoken rules.