I'm glad this subject is being brought up- the
experience I have had a few years ago include being
attacked by a coworker. She had no training in museum
work and I found out later she was hired by the former
director specifically because she was smart enough to
follow instructions but didn't have the museum
training so she could not challenge him. 

She was so threatened by my MA and training that she
began attacking me by my age (I was younger),
analyzing my behavior through everything I said, told
me to my face that because I had an MA I could find a
job anywhere, and at one point even physically
threatened me after I reminded that the director was
my supervisor and not her. 

I did talk to the current director who hired me, who
it seems was also threatened by my degree- he told me
on several occasions he didn't know his way around, he
told me he was just hanging around until his pension
came through, and I found I had to do some of his work
in order to accomplish mine-, and he dismissed the
situation. I was not able to to even trust the hr
director because she was intimately embroiled in a
scandal involving another department.

Ultimately, even though I was hired because of the
uproar over the hiring of my former coworker, I was
the one laid off due to the budget fallout following
Enron's collapse. At least that's what I was made to
believe, and I know there were other staff in other
departments who were also dismissed under similar
circumstances...

What unfortunately makes legitimate the cutting of
government funds for such public programs, is the
unfortunate hiring of people who are not trained in
museum work- it is a fraudulent use of public monies
and demeaning to the mission of museums. It would be
nice if museum and related associations all had the
guts to demand priority hiring of those who have
earned at least MAs in museum mangement. After all, we
are trained for the work, we are obviously dedicated
to the profession and we respect the profession to
seek out that training to improve standards of
programs and care of collections, and efficiently use
public monies for the benefit of the collections in
our care, our donors and visitors. 

Museum management is not about serving as welfare for
those who don't understand that their so-called life's
journey is not enough to warrant their hiring in a
position they are not qualified for.

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