If you folks think the museum biz pays poorly you should see what we
nature center folks are expected to survive on!  Still, it's a lot
more fun than working in an office building pushing paper.  Maybe
that's why we're paid so inadequately...we should pretend we're
miserable...then maybe we'd seem to be of more value to our
employers!

But seriously, just a few thoughts on the subject:

1) Any occupation which has historically employed a larger percentage
of women than men tends to not pay very well. (Anyone have any
figures on the male:female ratio in this line of work?)
2) Competition for jobs is very high...how many of your fellow grads
do you know who are now selling photocopier equipment because they
couldn't break into the field (or because they couldn't raise a
family on their income as a museum professional)?
3) The field also has a history of being occupied at managerial
levels by "gentlemen dabblers" with private resources, not unlike
other fields such as natural history.
4) We are funded by non-profits or governmental agencies...groups
which have many, many "excuses" for not paying their employees well.
5) We don't have enough tools to quantify our contributions to
society or the economy. Perhaps we should be concentrating on
developing data on "returns on investment" (I'm only half kidding.)



The nursing and teaching professions succeeded in achieving
professional level salaries in the 1980s.  I wonder how they did it?

Rhea Tannenbaum
Exhibits Coordinator
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center
Boca Raton, FL
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