Good points you make. But, there are so many babyboomers that even if 3/4  
stay on working, enough jobs are going to be able to open up. At the same time  
there are new positions being created. I am a babyboomer btw, though at the 
tail  end.
 
I should have pointed out that most of the museum jobs I was referring to  
and have applied to are at the state and federal level. My immediate supervisor  
is set to retire in 2 years (she'll be 54). A friend of my who worked at a  
state university (not a museum job) was offered a 'golden handshake' and  
couldn't resist. She was 45 and started working there when she was 19.
 
At 80% of her salary and full bennies! - no need to look for  other work or 
plenty opportunity to start a new career. So not everyone is going  to have to 
depend on SS benefits, though many of us still will.
 
Everyday, I am online looking for museum work. I check about 10 different  
websites daily. There ARE a lot of museum jobs. The 'new museology', a direct  
result of the phenomena of post-nationalism, is truly amazing. We are at, or  
close to the 'hey-day' for museums. Maintaining interest with the younger  
generation is vital, and I think all of us are doing a great job with this.  
Renewed patriotism in more recent times has been a great boost.
 
For a book pertaining to this subject I highly recommend: Zulaika,  Joseba. 
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa. Museums, Architecture, and City Renewal.  Center for 
Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno 2003.
 
It is true that the low paying, volunteer, etc., work is soooo difficult  and 
hurts the SS earnings and quarters. I am VERY aware of SS earnings as two  
years ago I had to go on SS Disability in order to have Medicare to pay for  eye 
surgery that I have had to put off for 15 years. I simply could not put this  
off any longer.
 
As I mentioned before, many of the issues I have faced with securing  
employment in a museum have been my own doing (or not doing). Being out of the  
workforce for 2 years has hurt too. It kills me when I see people who are  applying 
for jobs that I am trying to get, that already have good jobs and they  are 
just simply doing lateral transfers, etc. But I can't be bitter over that  
because they are certainly entitled, etc., and have their own circumstances. But  
I did once find myself wanting to scream, 'Wait, look over here, hello I am 
making nothing'.
 
Thanks to the internet, I can keep track of what's going on. For many of  
these jobs I've applied for, I have gone onto the museum's website and  have 
found the names of the people who were hired for jobs I applied  for. Then I can 
do a search for their names and find out more information. I do  this to assist 
in my job search. So for one, the person's name came up so many  times in the 
search. Tons of newspaper articles and clearly, this person had  done a lot 
of wonderful work and was well qualified.
 
I'm not looking to see whether the person is well-qualified to see if I was  
considered fairly or not, but I'm comparing their background to mine and I'm  
looking to see what else I would need to be competitive. All the people I have 
 found so far who are getting these jobs, are not unemployed. And often I can 
 find what job they left, and as far as I can tell that they were  doing 
related (non-museum) work, and are moving into full-fledged  museum work (was 
interesting to note). But they do have related MA's and it  looks like they may 
have had to accept other types of related work (perhaps at  the time they were 
looking for museum work, there was nothing much  available).
 
Whenever I can find what position they have held  before, interestingly 
enough I discovered that the jobs these people  are leaving, are jobs that I do not 
qualify for and they are high-profiling,  good paying positions. So I do 
think this is really curious. But also,  this clearly indicates that you have a 
better chance of getting a job if you  already have a (paying) job.
 
One of the last jobs I applied for was a museum at a state university. I  
searched the internet and found all the 2004 salaries (from professors  to 
maintenance workers) for every employee at that university. I found the  salary for 
the person that held the position that I was applying for. 
 
Based on that (and in another search I determined that this person had  
worked there for 8 years) I was able to figure a salary I could  negotiate for if I 
were offered the job. So I went up just a tad from the  starting salary for 
the position, but went lower than that of the  person vested 8 years. Once 
again, I never got to the point of salary  negotiations. I'll be ready though when 
the opportunity arises.
 
I was trying to stay 'calm' during my recent job searches but it hasn't  been 
easy to do so. Not only am I very anxious to get back to work in general,  
but it looked like I wasn't going to be able to send my son to college this year 
 if I didn't get a job and quick. I'd have to say that this broke my heart 
like  never before. Of course I could foresee this occurrence years earlier and 
tried  to prevent the possibility, but to have it become a realization was 
something I  never felt before and really can't put into words.
 
Without any of these jobs materializing,  I quickly got my  motherly instinc
ts refocused and went right over to the college and calmly  asked for more 
financial aid for my son. Although I still have to pay a bit, I  managed an extra 
10k! After the FA counselor made the offer, I broke down and  finally cried 
over all this.
 
Back to my point about my job search - I'm sure my anxiety and  desperation 
showed through during my interviews...I was sooo nervous. People who  are 
already in a job or otherwise not in a desperate situation have a far better  
chance of getting these jobs. Often, they don't have the stress to be out of  work, 
may be going for a higher salary, etc., and simply give a 2-week  notice.
 
Now that I am calm and my son is entering college, I am focusing on what I  
need to do to get a full-time, permanent museum job (not the volunteer, small  
grant, possible seasonal funding which is down from possible full-time to,  
'maybe' 3k). I have a whole different perspective now. If I have to volunteer  
and/or do an internship to update my skills, I'll do it. Then I'll start  
applying for museum work again (and keep trying to calm down already).
 
I know I am not the only one out there in this situation. And I will  
certainly have to work beyond retirement age just to pay off my once dinky  student 
loan. 
 
I have suffered through a lot. Five years of being a full-fledged  
(waitressing,and working at a hospital too) shovel bum had left me with  everything from 
lumbar spinal stenosis to Lyme disease. I went several years  undiagnosed 
with the spine condition because not too many people in their 30's  get that. So 
now you know, Micki that I AM one of the  people you are referring to! I have 
experienced the occupational effects from  this work. But I'm all patched up 
and ready to go!
 
I have to disagree with you about doing volunteer work though. I have  
faithfully volunteered for one museum for 10 years now. Every year - a used book  
sale and X-Mas craft show fundraisers -I inventoried all their Indian artifacts, 
 among other projects. 
 
Unfortunately, all volunteer work does is quite the opposite of what you  
might think. It tells a potential employer that you are willing to work for free  
(so why should they pay you 40k+ a year) and that you perhaps aren't 'good'  
enough to do paid work.
 
If you are looking for museum work and want to volunteer your time, you are  
far better off with a short-term internship, even if it's unpaid. The reason 
for  this is that potential employers know that an established internship 
usually  requires that the intern work under the supervision of a professional with 
 at least an MA.
 
In small, all-volunteer museums, you are less likely to work in a  
state-of-the art, professional environment. There are exceptions, of course and  I have 
spent a lot of the last 10 years learning from a Museum Director (and  town 
historian) who has a Ph.D. She's in her 80's and retired. I do make sure I  
properly use her title when I list her as a reference. 
 
I volunteer for my own personal benefit (something productive) and those  who 
benefit from my much needed work. So on one hand, I may express my need to  
volunteer in order to maintain my skills but I it is not the way to go for  
museum employment.
 
And being a research junkie, I have studied volunteerism while I was a  VISTA 
volunteer and when I worked on my social services degree. While I was a  
VISTA volunteer -is where I learned about grant writing and many other skills  
that I have been able to apply to museum work. People volunteer for many  
reasons, but it does not aid in an effort to  pursue professional work. It did get me 
a nice barrister bookcase that the  museum no longer needed.
 
Now you see that perhaps the reason I can't get the 'right' job is because  I 
am seriously a total research junkie, maniac employee that none of you out  
there in their right mind would consider hiring (no sah, just kiddin' I'm not  
that bad) . But I am taking a leap of faith with sharing my personal 
experiences  here to get some points across, and I would like to hope that my  name 
hasn't ended up alongside the word 'Delete' on your  keyboard! And besides, I 
know that many of you are also really totally serious  research junkies that are 
working like maniacs on dozens of projects!
 
Pam
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 8/22/2005 9:12:49 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Oh dear, Pamela. You anticipate older baby  boomers on the brink of 
retirement to move out of their jobs? They, but  obviously not you, are all too keenly 
aware that Social Security moves further  and further from their grasp, now 
requiring people to work until they are  nearly 70. When Social Security does 
kick in, the payment does not begin to  replace earned income, due primarily to 
the part-time, low wage and  employed/not employed insecurity of museum work. 
Retirement plan? A great  idea, but not one that museums tend to think is 
worth the trouble. Nest egg?  When property taxes rise to skyscraper height, when 
aging brings not only the  comfort of a life much enjoyed but the expenses of 
medical crises--  replacement knees from carrying those heavy boxes of 
archives, for example,  and dealing with cancer or diabetes complications-- or the 
loss of spousal  retirement plans and retired employee health insurance, absence 
of domestic  partner recognition for benefits, the expense of helping your 
grown kids out  when they lose their high-tech jobs, then their unemployment and 
health  insurance, then their house... the nest empties its eggs pretty  
rapidly.
 
No, all of these things have not happened  to me (yet), but I've seen all of 
them in the lives of colleagues all around  me, and I'm pretty sure I will be 
lying in a pine box before I can consider  quitting work.  This phenomenon of 
hard to find jobs is not limited to  the museum or public history world, and 
not limited to recent  graduates or  ambitious youth.  Times have changed, big 
time,  and we are all caught in the world we created, one that pours money 
into  wasteful war, looks the other way at executive stealing, and tolerates a 
"me  and only me" attitude throughout every layer of society around the  world. 
We're not approaching an economic crisis, we are smack in the  middle of it, 
and losing more daily.  I see money out there, cruelly used  in many cases and 
simply insensibly used in others. But I don't see it being  used to solve the 
acute economic problems we face at this moment.
 
However, I do agree with you on one  important point: it is indeed rare for a 
job to go to the best qualified  person. I think it is that "me and only me" 
phenomenon that puts incompetent  people in places of leadership and relative 
high income; people reward their  friends in return for something for 
themselves.  It is cruel for those  with the power to hire and fire to withhold a job 
from someone who upsets the  status quo by working to her best capacity! And, 
it perpetuates both  this lopsided, unfair system of rewards and growing 
acceptance of  incompetence.
 
At this moment in time, I don't know what  to advise a young person seeking 
museum or public history work. The museums  are not all going to close, so 
there will be work there.  There is  benefit in doing any kind of paid work (or 
volunteer for that matter, but  volunteering puts nothing on the dinner table); 
you learn the discipline of  working to someone else's line, you build a 
network. I've been surprised at  the growth of museum studies programs in recent 
years, and just as surprised  when I see how little the graduates have learned. 
I think there are as  many well qualified, competent grads as there have 
always been-- but because  there are more grads there are more average and below 
average grads, and fewer  non-profit museums too (but a huge increase in 
industry supported  ones).
 
Anyone have other thoughts? How can we  encourage good students, excellent 
teachers and competent grads, because  we do need them to carry museums into the 
future. Has there been a sea change  in museum expectations, favoring less 
competence, or favoring for-profit  sensibilities?  Where are the models for 
dealing with a surplus of  graduates in such a specialized field? Does there need 
to be a big change in  the way Museum Studies and Public History are taught? 
Uh oh, where is Pogo  when we need him?
 
Micki Ryan
Museum & Archival  Services




 
Pamela Silvestri, Museum Assistant
Northeast States Civilian  Conservation Corps Museum
Shenipsit State Forest
166 Chestnut Hill  Road
Stafford Springs, Connecticut 06076
(860)  684-3430

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