Most amusing was getting the standard "We're sorry but others were more qualified" letter from a place that I had turned down after getting an offer.

It is also important to give candidates a complete schedule of the visit prior to their arrival. This helps them prepare for the inteview. Note to candidates: if you can't bother to learn what the people at the department you are interviewing at do, then you are an idiot and will rightly punished for this. You should know well what all the people in your subfield do, and have a general sense of what everyone else you are meeting with does (eg. that person does African politics, that person does IPE, etc). There are no excuses for not knowing, even if their CV is not online. Google Scholar, online journal searches, jstor, etc. No excuses. And yes we will be offended by this-- you are showing a complete lack of disinterest in your would-be future colleagues.

That being said, about 10-15% of the interviews I've had have ended just like that -- no formal rejection, no informal rejection, and a chair hiding under his desk.

I took an non-teaching job at another school. Sure, they reimbursed my stay in the dorm room, but after I got the job they took the taxes for the reimbursement out of my check. Nobody could quite answer how that worked, either. **** job too.

So they booked a dorm room for you, right next to some undergraduates? How did that work out?

I immediately realized that a department where the SC is polite, honest, and forthcoming will probably also be an ok place to work. I took the job.

That being said...GROW THE **** UP, PEOPLE. An academic job interview is a place where you have have been given the opportunity to convince a group of people to give you lifetime employment. You need 15 minutes alone? Someone offered you too much soda? To afraid to ask for a pee break? Reimbursement didn't come fast enough? DEAL WITH IT. We have a name for these things: minor annoyances. Life is full of them, for everyone. If you can't figure out how to deal with these little things which crop up - especially on what is likely the most important day of your professional life - it signals to me you are likely a high-maintenance, personally incapable individual. Possibly incredibly self-absorbed as well. It would make me seriously doubt that I want to spend the next 6-30 years with you in the next office.

Seriously, stop whining.

And please, remember that a substantial portion of the population truly loathes B&B's. Generic business traveler hotels are perfectly appropriate for the situation, but I'd take a filthy Motel 6 over a B & B every time.

Even if you're one of those who thinks that any grownup should feel comfortable asking for a bathroom break,

Well, I think that someone visiting a department who has the balls to shill their job talk like its greatness is on a par with the **** ascension (basically every talk I've ever seen or given) should have the confidence to ask for a bathroom break.

How the hell are you going to control a lecture theater of 400 undergrads if you can't politely request to take a **** on a day-long visit?

Having to respond to questions like, "I don't see a ring on your finger....you DO like girls, don't you?," and "Where do you go to church?," and "How many babies do you have?" got really **** old.

Not to mention I had to share a bathroom with some random dude....

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

and realize that the energy requirements for candidates will differ. (but once hired, while you extraverts are out whooping it up, we're be writing and publishing and, in the end, destroy you. But we'll be quiet about it. Really. Sorry to be a bother.)

Yeah, I don't get the problem here. I don't understand the psychology of people being reluctant or unwilling to say they need a couple of minutes in the bathroom.

Freud would understand :)

"But whenever I have one-on-ones with candidates, I start by asking them if they would like some water, coffee, or some time for a bathroom break. And more often that not, they do want one of those things. When you're being shuttled from one meeting to the next, it can be intimidating to ask for a break for something that seems so 'minor.' "

Even if you're one of those who thinks that any grownup should feel comfortable asking for a bathroom break, I hope that you wouldn't one of your candidates to perform less well because he or she is shy about this, or to feel marginally less welcomed at your school and choose another place because no breaks were offered. It probably won't matter to either you or the candidate on the margin, but you shouldn't want it to.