as if i did not already have enough things fanning my various neuroses right now...

So the way it happens is that there is some Wednesday afternoon in February where I'm up at the office, going about my business-as-usual, and I get this sense that my senior colleagues have what, for lack of a better phrase, one might call a "heightened cognizance of my existence." Like someone says an unusually jovial or engaged hello to me in the hallway. Or by the copy machine. Or while I'm at a urinal. Always very friendly. It only takes two or three such interactions now for me to put together what day-of-the-week and time-of-the-year it is and then to know: the Executive Committee must have met today, and one of the items on their agenda must have been My Annual Tenure Review.

I did not subsequently receive an e-mail from the department chair telling me not to even bother showing up to teach my class tomorrow, so, as long as my luck holds and inbox stays clear of pink slips until midnight, it would appear that I have beaten my imagined/feared/glumly-expected worst-case scenario for the third year running.

Update, 10pm: A subscriber from South Bend, IN parenthetically notes: "(I had no idea guys ever spoke to each other while at the urinals!)" To which I reply: "'Tis true. This would not be the case, however, if I had been the deciding vote at the meeting where that particular portion of the Guy Code was determined."