Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Don't Laugh

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch in a campus-area dining spot, and was sitting near a group of undergrads who were having lunch together. During lunch, one of the students got a phone call that seemed to be related to a job opportunity or internship; the phone conversation mostly consisted of the the student's answering questions about courses, other work experience, and career goals. The student's tone of voice was serious and the topics were of a professional nature.

I don't know why the undergraduate (UG) didn't just run outside as soon it was clear that this was an important call, but UG did not leave. UG remained sitting with friends, who were silent for a while, listening to their friend answer questions, but then they started trying to make their friend laugh. Even if UG hadn't run outside with the phone when the call first came, why did UG stay even when the friends started making embarrassing sounds in the background and making gestures and comments to make UG laugh, with some success? Maybe it wasn't as important a phone call as it seemed to me, an ignorant eavesdropper, but I was puzzled as to why UG stayed, clearly having trouble remaining serious and focused on the phone call.

It reminded me of a time when I was talking on the phone with a potential postdoc (PPD). We were in different countries, so it had not been possible for us to meet in person, and this was our first conversation other than e-mails. The conversation occurred at a pre-arranged date and time, and was specified as an interview. It started fine, but then it was clear that someone in the PPD's vicinity was trying to make them laugh. I could hear some muffled sounds in the background, and then the PPD would try not to laugh. It made the conversation difficult because I kept hearing the PPD's stifled laughs, completely disconnected from our conversation, and sometimes I had to repeat a question because the PPD was distracted. The stifled-laughing/muffled-background sound wasn't a brief, one-time interruption; it was protracted and it was really annoying

I suppose I could have said something, ranging from "Could you please stop that? It is annoying," to "Do you need a minute to find a quieter place for us to continue this interview?", but decided it wasn't worth it. (Question for readers: Would you have said anything?). I asked myself, "Is this a deal-breaker?" and decided it was not. Even so, it was puzzling to me that the PPD thought this was appropriate behavior during an interview.

One of these incidents involved an undergraduate, one a graduating PhD student; one is male, one is female; one is from the US; one is not. And yet the two incidents seemed otherwise very similar.

Something else that I wondered about these two incidents, aside from not understanding why anyone would risk losing a career opportunity for such a stupid reason: What do the interviewees think about their friends who interfered with their interviews? I think ultimately it is the responsibility of the interviewee to avoid or stop these background jerks, but since they didn't in these two cases, were they at least angry with their friends, assuming that these interviews were at all important to the interviewees?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Academia bears some strange fruit - imagine this sort of unprofessional and disrespectful behavior in a phone interview with an employer in the real world (=market economy). It'd be a really short call. I just wonder why you didn't say something. Isn't it inconsistent to be annoyed for good reason, annoyed enough to bother writing a blog entry about it, but then you're not drawing consequences letting the applicant know how to improve his/her professional style? If applicants suffer from such an obnoxious deficit of empathy, I guess you could teach a little lesson here. Win-win for everybody.

dolce vita said...

Wow....I would say it's a generational thing, but I'm only a few years older than the undergrad and I know better than that. I know my PI didn't take a student (who was very good otherwise) because she was texting all the time, even during group meetings.

And I didn't care what the nature of hte phone call was, I always would go into my postdoc's office if it were from a medical school or something official from school.

Anonymous said...

Are we supposed to MENTOR the people we are interviewing, during the interview? I refuse.

Anonymous said...

That is pretty unprofessional, I agree. I would also be annoyed by someone texting during group meetings (and agree with dolce vita's PI for not taking a student who did so). I think for undergrads these days, it sometimes doesn't occur to them that that's rude. I once spoke up to an otherwise very good undergrad student in a research meeting with me & one other student. ("Is that something urgent you need to at tend to right now? No? Then please focus on our meeting instead.") There were only 3 of us meeting at a small round table, so I don't think she thought I couldn't see her. I think it just didn't occur to her that it was rude. She never did it again after that.

Back to the laughing during the interview, FSP, when you say that you didn't consider this a deal-breaker, does that mean you offered the post-doc the job? If he/she accepted, what was his/her behavior once they joined your lab? Was the interview behavior a harbinger of future problems, or an isolated incident?

-LM

FemaleAcademicAffairsDean said...

I read this and cringed.

As a grad student and postdoc, I never did anything quite like what you described (probably because cell phones were not ubiquitous), but I can think of more than a few times when my behavior might have signaled to a potential mentor, advisor, employer, etc, that I was not entirely serious or mature. Getting drunk and silly at a conference, engaging in catty girl chat within earshot of a faculty member or potential postdoc mentor, etc. I can even recall more than a few of my early faculty meetings where I forgot to turn off the silly switch. At some point I grew out of this, but it took both a reflective assessment of the range of consequences of such behavior (i.e. people not taking me seriously), and a conscious effort to change.

I suspect this kind of behavior reflected some confidence that we "knowledge workers" would always be judged by scholarly productivity, the quality of our work, and the value others placed on our intelligence. I would not describe myself as overly confident, especially compared with so many of my colleagues, but until very recently I did share the scientist/academic conceit that formalities and etiquette don't really matter that much as long as you do good work. Besides, being fun at parties or breaking the tension at faculty meetings with a funny comment were actually assets. And while I think both parts of that are generally true, one does have to consider what kind of professional image one wants to project.

It is not so much a general issue, but rather a combination of personality and environment. We jokers get a lot of positive energy directed toward us, and that can be quite addictive and difficult to give up. The first Anon (4:46) slams it out of the park when distinguishing between academia and the market economy. There is far less external pressure to conform in academia-at least as experienced by young trainees.

These days I give career advice to grad students and this includes encouraging them to think about the image that they are projecting in any professional situation. Because it does matter, and that is not a bad thing.

EliRabett said...

Humans are monkies

John Vidale said...

The only explanation that comes to mind is the poor conversationalists think more of impressing their friends or fear being talked about in their absence than they want to make a good impression with you. Which would fall into the category of immature lack of judgment, undercutting their case for being well-qualified for the job.

(by the way, these anti-robot tests are becoming harder, and now are a noticeable tax on the effort of posting.)

Anonymous said...

When I was an undergrad 5 years ago up until present time, I always made sure I was alone for scheduled phone calls. If I could be at home, I made sure I was alone (though worried about the chance my dog would bark.) If I am at work, I go into our cell culture room alone or find an empty conference room. I think it should impact your opinion of the applicant- an adult should treat a scheduled call with the respect it deserves.

Historiann said...

I'm with Anonymous 4:46. I would have suggested that the interviewee find a quieter place where ze could talk without distractions. That's a strong enough hint that the interviewee's conduct is inappropriate, and it gives them an opportunity to fix the problem.

But like dolce vita says: if the interviewee chooses not to change hir behavior, I would say buh-bye!

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't have said anything to the laughing PPD. It's not my job to teach people how to behave in an interview.

Anonymous said...

I've never done anything like this and have always tried to have important conversations in private places where I have some control over the environment around me but I have had instances where I've been interrupted or had something awkward happen in the background. This happens because as grad students/postdocs we often don't have private offices and office mates may think they can "just pop in for one sec". More awkward are the times I've received calls from search committees when I didn't know the call was coming and the timing was bad. Recently working at home I answered the phone to what turned out to be a search chair about 30 seconds before my husband flushed the toilet (very audible in the home office). I don't know for certain that the SC heard that but I was dying inside. So - what to do? I'm leaning towards not answering unless I know the number and can clear the room (or house if need be). This is different than the rude and foolish behavior you're describing but maybe falls under the same 'human error' category. My inclination is to be forgiving of minor indiscretions but take people up on longer-term more serious behaviors (e.g. texting during a meeting?!). Still I do worry for some undergrads these days (maybe always?) who don't seem to know much about the appropriate 'tone' to take with faculty. The workplace may be very tough for them.

Anonymous said...

I'm really curious to know whether the PPD got the job now...

mjphd said...

As an interviewer, that would bug me. I would have said something.

In grad school, if one of us had a phone interview we would let everyone know ahead of time so we could have the office to ourselves. We would also put a sign on the door in case anyone forgot/ wasn't aware. There were never any problems.

To me, it would seem like a sign that PPD colleagues don't respect him/ her.

Harvestar said...

While I have a private office as an elderly grad student, there is no phone line (the department needed to save money), so I use my cell phone. I have very limited cell phone reception in my office so to assure reception, I have to move to the hallway. I'm sure there's sometimes noise issues but mostly, just my parents call every few weeks, so it's not a big deal.