What hap­pens when Socrates tries to land a job at a uni­ver­si­ty? It does­n’t go so well. Below, we have the com­ments returned by the inter­view com­mit­tee, as imag­ined by THE (Times High­er Edu­ca­tion). In this piece, you’ll also find Tol­stoy, Kaf­ka, Jane Austen and oth­er genius­es com­ing up short with the search com­mit­tees. Now to Socrates…

“At first the can­di­date’s own list of ques­tions felt refresh­ing, but soon became counter-pro­duc­tive to the inter­view process. His spir­it of inquiry masked an indif­fer­ence to time con­straints and a pas­sive-aggres­sive need to dom­i­nate the con­ver­sa­tion. As anoth­er can­di­date cooled his heels, the request for him to con­clude his thoughts on the ide­al soci­ety scarce­ly reg­is­tered as we won­dered if, then began to wish that, some­one would spike his drink.”