There’s been some discussion recently about the importance of a freshly-minted academic’s first job. My first job was a non-tenure-track appointment at the University of Western Ontario, and I was glad to get it: academic jobs were scarce then, and UWO is a good school.

The job also made it possible to spend more time with some close friends who were finishing off their graduate studies at UWO. One day, soon after I moved to London, they suggested that I submit something to the student newspaper’s ‘Academics’ section, reserved for professors’ contributions. "What would I write about?" I asked, "I just started." So I wrote about that, and it turned into my first publication. Here it is, as it appeared in The Gazette on Tuesday, November 27th, 1990:

It’s almost the end of term, but I’m still not quite used to my new job.

When I started my university career as an undergraduate, professors were the chalk-covered people at the front of the hall who never seemed to notice that their lectures put most of us to sleep. Ten years later, I find myself choking on chalk dust and watching students drop like flies.

Most of us don’t set out to become professors. For example, when I reached my fourth year as an undergraduate, the choices were either to go to grad school or get a job. It turns out that getting a job involves wearing a tie every day, so the decision was an easy one to make. After graduate school, I found myself overqualified for most of the jobs that require ties and ended up teaching Economics 122 and 220 here at Western.

Whenever I tell people that I teach six hours a week for 26 weeks a year, I can see them trying to calculate my hourly wage and then shaking their heads at the result. I try to explain that I’m expected to produce new research and that preparation and marking take up a surprising amount of time, but it’s obvious that they wish I’d stop whining and admit that I’m lucky to have this job.

After all, it has many fringe benefits. I don’t have to wear a tie. I make enough money to afford a car, and I can even use the Social Science  Centre parking lot. I have my own office. I don’t have to report to anyone; in fact, no one notices if I take a day off (actually, that last part is sort of depressing, since I’m too busy to take advantage of it).

These sorts of things are fairly easy to get used to.

Even so, I’m having difficulty learning to respond to the new titles I seem to have inherited: "Professor Gordon," "Doctor Gordon" and "Sir."

I suspect that the people who call me that are demonstrating their respect for the position I hold, because that’s the only thing that’s changed recently. It’s disconcerting, but it has its advantages: the university bureaucracy moves much more quickly if it thinks it’s acting on behalf of a member of the faculty. Try it sometime.

Then there are my students. When I was an undergraduate, I assumed that professors knew everything: why else would they be allowed to lecture? But after 10 years and three degrees, the only thing I know for certain is that there are a lot of people out there who are much smarter than I am.

Nonetheless, intelligent people seem to be willing to give up both time and money to listen quietly while I speak. I haven’t figured them out just yet, although I have a hunch that the students who are falling asleep are the smart ones.

Looking back, I’m glad that I had the good sense to realise early on that I was onto a good thing, and to be grateful for it.