Cow Towns

I'm applying to a one-year sabbatical replacement job in a cow town. I'm keeping the details offline for fear of showing up on a google search ("hmm...candidate KFR called our lovely village a "cow town." Let's not give him the job we would have otherwise totally given him.") My chances of getting it aren't much higher than were my chances of getting real (i.e. permanent) jobs, so I'm not investing much energy imaging what it would be like to move from lefty SC to a dude ranch in the sticks, but it does highlight the weirdness of this business in general.

What I mean is that in no other line of work does one investment this much time and energy and then snap at any pseudo-prospect that comes up, no matter how remote. My friend E is applying for a job that is literally at Panhandle State University (ok, it's not really called that...), and the two of us were laughing this morning in the bunker about how it's Come To This. Imagine going to medical school and then moving to, say, Nome, Alaska, because that's the only place that needs a doctor.

The real issue is the slipping point between hellhole and need for job: how awful does a location have to be that even us desperate would-be academics won't apply there? For me, I'm only applying to one-year jobs or community college gigs that are already coincidentally near where I want to be (i.e. Portland) because otherwise, why not just move to Portland anyway? I'm sure as shit not going to take a one-year throw-away job in the backwoods when I at least could move back to my favorite city, job or no job.

Also: It definitely makes scanning for job listings faster when you can ignore everything in the south.

P.S. The clever reader can infer that the cow town job that I am applying to is, in fact, nearish to Portland.