Scene: Christmas party.
Person: So what are you doing for Christmas, Z?
Graduate Student Zero: The main event is, go to the MLA.
Professor for whom I am a Research Assistant [overhearing]: That is a bad idea. You have not filed your dissertation. You will have no interviews.
Graduate Student Zero: I have seven.
Do you see what I mean? I do not know why people rush to deliver bad news and like to relish it as well. Yet when there is actual bad news, they like to say it is not true (although this is not an example of that). Are these things true of everyone, or is it an academic thing, or do I just know a lot of twisted people?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I used to think it was a proof of my irritability that I always noticed the asinine denials of undeniable bad news. It really is quite annoying.
About the bad-news-rushing, I frankly have no idea apart from my own objective in delivering it, which is to ground people or warn them of possible downfalls so they’re careful. Although, admittedly, I frame them as questions rather than confident statements (e.g: “Do you think you’ll have many interviews before actually filing your dissertation?”).
I am irritated in the extreme by asinine denials of really bad news.
But in academia people like to discourage each other, I find. “Do you think you’ll have interviews before filing your dissertation?” or “Do you think you’ll have interviews?” are both insulting questions to ask a week before the convention, when asked by someone who knows how things work. By that point it’s far too late to “think” you’ll have interviews or not, you know the answer to that question. You are going to the convention to interview but probably have other things you need to do like give a paper and talk to editors about your manuscript. The only relevant questions are, do you have interviews, are you giving a paper, what else are you going to do while there / are you going to see X exhibit while you’re in that town, etc.
I was once told this was symptomatic of scarcity — resources in academia are scarce, and people would prefer not to have people around them succeed, because that by default makes them less successful.
Maybe that is it.
Well, venerable realist that I am, I believe that no one in any walk of life will help you out much unless there is something in it for them. Why expect that? I never got anything from anyone in acedemia unless I gave them something in return, and I accepted that.
If people tried to discourage me, I figured they were not worth wasting my time on (doing nothing for me) and I stuck with the people who could help me out and whom I could help out in return.
But I guess academic life is supposed to be pure.
Well, not one of my most thoughtful comments. Hope you don’t take it wrong. As to the grammar, well, so be it.
I’ve actually gotten a lot in academia for apparently “free” or as what appeared to be professional c9ourtesy. Although maybe people thought they were getting or would get something in return, I have often not perceived this.
Only in return, only as backscratching, I am a real snob and say that when things are done that way it’s a symptom of not being at a good school or not being in a good program.
Discouraging, I suppose, if you’re old enough or sophisticated enough to realize it. Deterrence, terrorizing, discouraging, debilitating “advice” was given me as good before I was old enough or had enough counterexamples to be able to identify it.
I have an example from right now. Grad student hanging in halls waiting for dissertation director, me waiting for elevator. Me to student: so what’s your dissertation on, anyway? Student: oh, thanks for asking that! People always ask if I am finishing but never ask about my topic!
And I’d asked because I was interested and it was the most interesting question I could think of, but also for pedagogical reasons: what are you working on? is a collegial question designed to make her feel like a colleague and feel that there may indeed be interest in her work. It’s a LOT better to ask them a positive question than grimace about writing dissertations on Fridays the way so many would.
(I feel like a bad teacher but I think I am actually a teaching genius.)
I figure that a fair percentage of academic life goes on in the hallways and elevators!
You are right that there was a lot more backstratching at Portland State University than at Reed. At Reed it was simple: you were in or you were out, and that was pretty well determined at the outset, both for students and for faculty. At PSU there were some small prizes about for some who were not top tier.
It’s not really snobbery to admit that, I think.
Some people I know here call it “snobbish” to have seen certain things, ever.