Skip to content


The philosophical way to answer a decline

I found this on the blog of one of my partner fiancĂ©’s professors. As well as he did, I found it hilarious…

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall
Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,

Chris L. Jensen

[Originally from here]

Posted in Links. Tagged with , , , .

2 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. I “stumbled” here. The profile looked promising. The posts were all ones I might have picked myself had I found them. Not accepting a rejection letter? Delightful. David Lynch’s responses? Perfect. Good luck on your new year. I’ll be back.

  2. Great find. I’d love to know what happened in August. haha

Some HTML is OK

(required)

(required, but never shared)

or, reply to this post via trackback.