It's been my experience that every department head
has a volunteer that he/she would love to strangle.
In every museum that I've worked in, there has been
one volunteer that didn't like adhereing to policy,
thought their ideas ought to be implemented, or just
generally became an enormous headache to the professional
staff.  These also turned out to be the best volunteers--
the ones who were willing to come in on short notice,
stayed late when necessary, or gave extra attention
to tour groups.  Now, whenever I find troublesome
volunteers I look at all aspects of their behavior.
They usually turn out to be so useful in one area
that I'm willing to put up with them being a pain
in the rear or will work harder to straighten out
(if possible)their behavior in other areas.

On the other hand, I worked for a museum where two
retired and one present board member had also been
volunteers at the museum for 25 years.  They thought
they knew more about the collection than the curators
who never stayed as long as they did. When I came in
as Curator, the Director told me I could only "make
suggestions" and not supervise these three women.

To make an already long story short, they ignored
budget guidelines, deaccessioned artifacts by throwing
them away, and nailed posters from the collection
to exhibit walls. The director refused to believe
there was a problem, even when presented with evidence,
and I was eventually fired when they complained
about me.

Belinda Nickles