Dear Leroy:

I am glad you have asked the "indelicate" question. I applied chiefly in
order to be seen to be fulfilling a requirement of my CSA contract. I
admit that I also had a glimmer of hope for the position, inasmuch as I
heard through the grapevine that certain of my qualifications seemed
well-suited to the intended nature of the position. Despite this, and
although I think it a moot point given my publication record, I would
not accept a position in the Department of Physics at the University of
Calgary. However, there is more to this than may meet the eye; it is not
simply because I couldn't then live in Saskatoon.

Over the last year, as you will see if you read my draft Annual Report,
I have done very little in the way of science. I can plead extenuating
circumstances, e.g., the need to put the Polar Camera back into proper
working order, being P.I. for our CSA Small Payloads proposal, and the
large volume of Polar Camera data that had to be processed. However,
when I look at the value I got for my time this year, I am not satisfied
that I gave good value for the CSA's investment in me. I'm not trying to
be puritanical here, I'm just assessing my output as objectively as I
can. I should have taken certain decisions about buying help to handle
"routine" tasks like data processing. I should have been more focussed
in my use of the available time. (Some would say I should have spent a
lot _more_ time, as well; nine hours a day, five days a week doesn't
really cut it in most people's eyes.) This may sound like 20:20
hindsight, and perhaps it is; my feeling is that the kind of person a
University wants on faculty is one who takes a day, week, or month,
rather than a year or two, to come to some of these realizations, and
act on them. 

I said in my annual report last year that my proposed studies needed to
be fully collaborative, and I believed it. However, I didn't make it
happen. Why? Shyness, perhaps; perhaps letting other, more
psychologically comfortable, activities take priority (a.k.a.
procrastination). I have shown that I am happy, indeed delighted, to
collaborate when invited to do so. This is no doubt a useful part of a
strategy to achieve my scientific goals, but it isn't enough.

Part of me wants to cry out, "Give me one more year and I'll make it
different!" That part of me is desperate to feel a success at what I've
trained so many years for; is afraid of finding out I can't get a job
doing anything else. But deep down I recognize I lack certain qualities
that a University faculty member requires: self-discipline,
organization, judgment, the ability to keep more than one ball in the
air at a time. I think my publication record bears this out. I can't
believe that an objective search committee would prefer me to one of the
other candidates my age, with many more publications. But even if it
happened, I couldn't accept the offer, because I don't think the chances
are good enough, that I'll change my ways in time to pass the tenure
review, to make me a good gamble for the University. This may sound like
overweening pride: who am I to esteem my own judgment over that of my
betters in consultation? But I know myself better than they do. And I've
spent enough years not giving full value to want to do it any longer.