I had made it to the final round of the academic interview, a multi-stage progress that takes months, for a coveted tenure-track teaching job. Unfortunately, this round of the interview was a large group dinner in a loud, crowded bar, and I am half deaf. That's not something I had disclosed during the course of my interview (grad school professors, none of whom were disabled themselves, had strongly advised me to stay silent) but now the chair of the hiring committee was seating me under a blaring speaker.
