Giantess

This afternoon was the retirement party for someone who has worked in our department for twenty years, and tons of people came. One of them, to my delight, was the chair who hired me. She stayed on for an extra year after she was eligible to retire in order to get three of us through the tenure process (we all sailed through successfully, because she is awesome), and she continued to collaborate with me on a shared research interest even after she left the job in 2019. She's my favorite boss ever.

She hugged me and congratulated me on my promotion--

[it dawns on me that I was so grumpy and so far out of the blogging habit that I didn't even tell you when it was finally official: my promotion to full professor was formally approved last month by the president. whoops! also hurray! go me! that was a long sloggy process!]

--and she told me she'd been pulling for me. She said she had crossed paths with the current chair shortly before decisions were out and asked him if he had an update. "He told me he was still waiting for the president's letter but he was very confident all would be well. He said, 'She's my gentle giant.'"

She said this in a happy approving voice and so I didn't say what I was actually thinking, which was, "Excuse me, his gentle giant??"

My current chair grew up in a different part of the world and English is something like his fourth language, so I'm trying to cut him some slack. When the department committee reviewed my dossier last fall, they said to me, "How did you prep all these different classes while also publishing all these papers?" And I know that my chair also appreciates my service contributions, since I've been around long enough to be competent in a bunch of different committee roles. So I'm trying to interpret "gentle giant" as "versatile and thorough and plays nicely with others," or something like that.

In my mind, though, a gentle giant is something like a Clydesdale or a St. Bernard: generally harmless, maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed. I can't think of any fictional giants I'd aspire to be -- not the BFG, not the Giant Rumblebuffin, certainly none of the Silver Chair giantesses. And I am probably not the only woman who winces a little at the idea of being giant-sized, which is unfortunate but also pretty ingrained. 

So. It's nice to hear that my chair has confidence in me. I'm just going to record my actual reaction to his actual words here in hopes of leaving it behind me.