I applied for this job in early November 2018. I had an initial phone interview two weeks later, during which the person—let’s call her person A—asked the usual questions. A week and a half after that, I had a phone interview with persons B and C. They were both late to the conference call. Person B came on 10 minutes late and said that C would be along shortly; she was in a "very important meeting." Nice to know where I stood. After some uncomfortable small talk, B and I started discussing the job, and C came along about five minutes later. Despite their lateness, I thought the call generally went well. The conversation flowed smoothly, and C, who was the more senior person, seemed to like both my personality and my work. At one point, though, B came off as a little confrontational. When I asked if the management and editing of photographs were part of the position, he asked rather brusquely, "Are you afraid of photography?" If he'd looked at my website, he'd have seen that I'm an experienced photographer. However, I chalked that up to a mismatch in communications styles; sometimes intentions don't come across well on the phone. Person C even went so far as to say that I should feel free to email her with anything, even a "funny story" that I might hear. I thought that was a little odd, a little overfriendly, but surely a good sign. Not having heard anything, I emailed person A, the organizer of this whole process, two weeks later to ask about my status. I followed up with a call the next business day; she told me she hadn't forgotten me but that she'd been out and swamped with emails and so on—as if that were my problem. As the days went by, I started to write them off, figuring that they were not longer interested in me. To my surprise, person A did get back in touch, after New Year's. If I'd wanted to be generous, I could have assumed that the delays were due the the holidays. She scheduled me for an in-person interview, which took place the following week. By now it had been over a month since the last phone interview. The interview was in three stages. During stage 1, I met with person D, the highest person in this hierarchy of hell. She spoke very loudly and had an aggressive demeanor, and she chewed gum with her mouth open the whole time. D asked, "Why should we hire you when we have so many applicants, including an internal candidate?" I knew I should have walked out right then. She was basically telling me that they'd already made their mind up to hire an internal personal. I found the way she phrased the question to be rude; more appropriate would have been something along these lines: "How do your strengths match the position?" Stage 2 was a meeting with persons B and C from the call and a new person, E. This went pretty well. B, who'd come across as confrontational on the call, was pleasant enough; I might have misinterpreted him earlier. Stage 3 introduced yet more people to this imbroglio: F, G, and H. They went out of their way to tell me how bureaucratic and ego-driven the environment was. They all but stated outright that if I liked to accomplish things efficiently, with no micromanagement, and in a way that would lead to professional fulfillment, this wouldn't be the place for me. In retrospect, I should have thanked them for the warning. At 45 minutes, stage 3 went on far too long. I'm not sure why so much time was allotted to it, as working with F-H was not the main part of the job as far as I could tell. I asked each of them about their backgrounds because I had nothing else to talk about; I just wanted to leave. As I was packing up to go, person A told me that she had to hurry out to catch her train. It was 4:30. A person who claimed to be so busy that she couldn't respond to applicants in a timely way regularly left at 4:30. In this bureaucracy, it seemed, people settled into their little fiefdoms and (barely) fulfilled their roles. She said I was the first person they'd interviewed—in almost two months from my application date, they'd only managed one interview!—and that they'd be in touch. Great—more weeks of waiting. I followed up with A two weeks later and got no response to my email. One month to the day after my last follow-up email, I got a rejection, a typical form email sent from a no-reply corporate address: "At this time, we will not be pursuing you as a candidate...." This came in on a Saturday night at 11:30! Who does that? Having met with all these people and being strung along for three months, I felt that I was at least owed a personal email during regular business hours, but that's based on my faulty assumption that they care about candidates or their own jobs. If you apply to Mt. Sinai, expect a long wait between steps, and don't expect to be treated as if you or your time matters.