The View From Kalamazoo

On schmoozing.

I’m OK at schmoozing. I’m no slick, polished, salesman-style pro at the shake-and-smile routine, but I can be pleasant and social when need be. If around people I don’t know well I tend toward silent observation unless I work at it. Congress is easy (if tiring), since most interactions are brief questions/needs/complaints and I can be lovely and witty and charming for 30-second intervals just fine – it’s the longer periods I struggle with. My friends know me as chatty and enthusiastic (or sarcastic, depending on the situation), but those are people I’m comfortable with. My usual style is the offhand deadpan as I’m leaving the room – this does not translate well into schmoozability.

Moot point, since I’m certainly light years away from the tenure review committee scenario. At least I hope no faculty I’ve ever met with at a school was left with a ‘What a stand-offish sourpuss!’ after meeting with me…I don’t think so, at least. Probably something even more embarrassing, I’d imagine, since I get a bad case of brain shut-down when my nerves are up and jangling. (This is why I appreciate that conference papers are written down and not off-the-cuff. I don’t have to be functional until questions so long as I can read English off of the page.)

[Should I be encouraged that emeritus faculty here, who requested and has read The Thesis From Hell (my partner in library tango – we often recalled the same books from each other, not knowing who had it. Heh), made a point to ask how my plans were shaping up and where I’d be this fall? And, after I had made the brief, unhappy story known suggested I should keep on with it? It must be some sort of curse that people at a variety of institutions who have no control over what committees do with my file love me, but committees apparently don’t.]