As has long been stated here, volunteering is one of
the better ways to get your foot in the door at a
museum, but one should be careful, they don't just
take your foot and your leg too.

For any of you who volunteer, if you have some sort of
spreadsheeting capability on your compuer (Excel?), I
strongly encourage you to track your volunteer hours. 
Record date, hours spent, to whom you were assigned to
work under, what institution, and what you did.  Take
the number of hours you volunteered, and project that
against the Points of Light figure for a volunteer
hour, which, for 2004, was listed as $17.55 per hour
(STOP:  I know many of you don't even make that as
employees, but that's the figure you have to work with
and is comparable to the IRS figure).  

Run a cumulative total of the number of hours you have
donated to the Institution and a cumulative value of
your contribution therefor.  Use your statistics to
try to leverage you into a full-time position but, if
the money isn't there, and they're simply carroting
and donkeying you along, you still have data you can
use for resume purposes in attempting to get another
position.

If they promise you anything (except money) to keep
you there and don't deliver, is there another museum
in the area in which you can offer your services where
the chances of acquiring a job are greater?  If yes,
I'd say go offer yourself there.  If there is nothing
in your area to which you could transfer your skills
and abilities, I'd have to ask you:

o  Why are you volunteering there in the first place? 
Is it for a job or the experience to qualify for a
job?

o  What would you do with your time otherwise if you
weren't volunteering?  Would you simply stop applying
yourself and your talents to a museum because a job
wasn't there?

o  How are you otherwise sustaining yourself?  Do you
already have a job and do this in your spare time
trying to get one in the museum field?

If you've already got a job to pay the bills and would
simply be sitting at home, not being a part of a
museum, then I'd say don't quit.  If there's another
place who would be a better job lead, go there if
they'll have you.  

The place for which you are currently volunteering may
never hire you.  But you are also using them in some
ways to acquire job knowledge and skills.  The
information you track on your spreadsheet should help
on your resume.  I don't think I'd quit, but I'd keep
looking for something else and realize you owe this
place no allegiances.




Indigo Nights
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