An hour ago, I wrote the following in response to a spontaneous candidacy for a postdoc, emanating from Pakistan:
> Dear Dr. T…,
>
> Thank you for contacting me. I will not be able to take any postdocs next
> year in my group, but I have taken the initiative to forward your letter to
> two colleagues in related domains of human genetics who may well be interested
> by your candidacy.
>
> Wishing you best of luck in the future.
>
> Sincerely yours,
> Heather Etchevers
I just got this back:
Dear sir
Thank you for your cute reply.
Regards
I frequently get applications from students (mostly from China and India as it seems) that start with “Dear Sir”. I think it’s great they let me know already in the first two words that I don’t have to bother reading their stuff because they didn’t bother to do as much as finding out I’m female either.
I got thanked for my ‘motherly response’ (given in my capacity as editor of a journal) last week. You can imagine that it was nothing like it (or that would be a very weird kind of mother indeed, talking about fairly assessing manuscripts…).
Sigh.
Just be grateful they didn’t do too much research on your name
Dear Dr. Vulgaris…
It’s not the first e-mail of the sort I’ve received either, but I was tickled by this one. Even in France, I sometimes get addressed as Monsieur. Germany being adjacent and England separated by a bit of water, names ending in -er are more commonly masculine than not (Rainer, Walter, etc.).
Agreed, that anyone looking for a job or a favor should at the least avoid the obvious mistakes!
I rather like what they said about me, Mike… ! Sounds like I could use a little essence of self from time to time.