(rant continuing)
   
  Not all of you are going to be successful in getting that next job, and you need to know how to turn things around to cover the cost of living unless and until you can get back into the museum field.  You need to be honest with yourself about your skills and abilities and continue to enhance them.  There are too many resources available online for you to let your transferable job skills lapse.  See  http://www.careeronestop.org/SKILLS/SkillCenterHome.asp and http://www.careeronestop.org/TRAINING/TrainingEduHome.asp as a place to start. 
   
  Regrettably, as painful as it may be to hear this, some of you are going to have to take positions in other lines of work—permanently.  The market for applicants is significantly greater than the positions they desire.  It’s part of the reason why, on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MuseJobs we provide you more than strictly museum-only jobs.  If some who can and will work in other fields, it makes more room for those who will only work in a museum.  But those openings are going to be harder to come by in the days ahead because vacancies are just not being created.  Those who have positions are holding onto them because they simply cannot afford to retire.  The cost of housing has become egregious, and the standard of living has not risen commensurate with the economy.  There has been no effective COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) since the 80s.  Wages have not risen commensurate with the cost of living.  It’s a fact in the business world, and it is also a fact in the museum
 world.
   
  For those of you in museums, who manage and create them, stop and take a look at your circumstances.  For as long as I’ve been on list, the museum economy has not gotten any better.  You need to stop creating new museums and start consolidating old ones that can be consolidated just to survive.  As emotionally painful as it was for me to see my beloved Southwest Museum get merged with the Autry, it now seems as the only logical solution.  Companies merge and downsize all the time, finding economies  in so doing and saving both companies, though not all workers.  Perhaps several eclectic museums can share the same building and the resources it takes to manage them.  Be creative in your thinking and face the music.  It’s not getting any better, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to.
   
  You must become more business minded in order to survive.  Instead of that PhD, consider an MBA that will allow you to manage the business side of the museum.  You will be most uniquely qualified.  This may not be what you want to hear, but sugar coating the truth only does you a disservice.
   
  You must do as other causes do—you’ve got to find a big name sponsor/patron of the arts.  You need a Bono or a Bill Gates (even Paul Allen) in order to get your plight out there.  You need to change your ways and know that the old ways of running museums aren’t working—you’re not getting the big dollar donors you once were (they’re dying off and/or possibly losing the estate tax benefits).  You need to find new ways to creatively market to new generations.  That means kids and their parents.  Regarding those teachers you wanted to entice, you’ve got to remember WIIFM and make it work.
   
  It is not discriminatory in the states to expect that someone would have xx-number of years experience to qualify.  The problem is going to be how to get that experience except by volunteering (and don’t tell me you can’t volunteer because I give your community 80 hours a month on average).  You also have to be able to perform the essential functions of a job.  A disabled employee at any age (whether 72 or 27) must be able to perform the essential duties of their position, and it should be expected of them.
   
  There is no free lunch.  One should not expect an organization to carry a worker to retirement out of loyalty and tenure.  In the current job market—in the for-profit world—seniority doesn’t carry the respect it once did.  Each and every employee must be expected to be able to perform.
   
  TO BE CONTINUED


Indigo Nights
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