This Stephen Weil passage brings out the contrarian in me...
Besides being mushy on a scale right up there with Mark Helprin's
speech for Dole; it not only doesn't reflect my 15 years of
experience in the museum biz, it also is full of the "ain't we grand
and morally superior" tone that affects me like eating a package of
nutra-sweet(tm).
If anything, museums' general low rate of pay adds an edge of
embitterment to the employees. Only a few employees in any given
museum are really "doing what they want to do," many of the
professional staff are in some evolving state of their professional
life, and are aiming higher. So the associate curator of decorative
arts may be doing this because s/he loves it, but s/he sure would
like: a) to be better paid; b) to chief curator (or both). And this
does not even address the support staff, ranging from frustrated
artists working as fundraisers, to non-union (for the most part)
security and clerical staff.
I've only worked in the for-profit world in menial temporary
summer-type jobs, and have always made the non-profit world my
professional focus. So, my basis for comparison is slim, but I could
not generalize that people in the non-profit world are less embittered
than those in the business world. Many in the latter get real kicks
from their work. And if, in our eyes, their purpose is not so
admirable as ours, that is certainly our own business. I suspect that
if I were in the for-profit world, my reaction to Stephen's statement
would be: "well, that holier-than-thou so and so, I go to museums, and
listen to music, and raise a family, and participate in my community,
and if he thinks that the museum world is such a noble and superior
calling, he's welcome to it." (or words to that effect)
I think its easy for us relatively poorer folks to feel morally
superior to relatively richer folks. Again, that's fine (I indulge in
it too), but I don't think that it makes for a compelling rationale
for lousy pay and poor working conditions.
Eric Siegel
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