Chuck, As an historian and aviation museum worker, I must tell you that while your example of airline pilots was once true, it is no longer the case. Airline pilots are forced to retire at age 60 and fewer military pilots are entering the field. This itself is interesting because the military attacked the loss of expensively-trained pilots to the airline industry on two front - requiring pilots to serve longer following training before they can leave the service and by increasing pilots' pay. With all the WWII trained pilots now retired and those of the Vietnam era are quickly passing through that age 60 barrier as well there's a looming pilot shortage. So instead of 1000 applicants for each job, there aren't enough qualified pilots to fill them. So inadvertantly, I end up giving people advice on entering a field other than museum work! But without military pilot training, the path to the left seat of that 757 is one of long hours at ridiculously low pay building flying time following a very expensive education to get the necessary skills - begins to sound familiar doesn't it - except for the big payoff if you survive and succeed. On a different tack, in my own situation, I'm lucky that our museum is part of a larger organization. This has allowed the museum staff to more easily point out the pay discrepancies between ourselves and those in other parts of the organization with similar levels of education, experience and responsibility. We haven't reached equity yet, but enough progress has been made that we are no longer at the poverty level. At the same time, we face an increasingly difficult task when trying to increase the number of bodies on staff. So the administration is in effect saying - here's your raise, but to keep labor costs in line, you now need to do more work with less help. Sometimes it's hard to measure progress isn't it? RT Ron Twellman, Collections Manager EAA AirVenture Museum P.O. Box 3065 Oshkosh, WI 54903-3065 920-426-5917 -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Stout [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 12:14 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Museum wages I'm enjoying all the various views expressed in this thread, and here's another 1.5 cents worth. I had this kind of conversation with my wife several years ago. She's a psychotherapist. Her first job out of grad school paid something like $18K a year. When I asked why people with great attitude, extensive training, high responsibility (in her case, often life-and-death responsibilities) and a higher education were paid so little, she gave the same list of excuses: It's a desire to serve, it's a passion thing, people don't do this for the money, the non-profit world is different, the field is traditionally low paying, we don't have the power to change the system, etc. We applied some cortical exercise to the problem and came up with some questions. Why do airline pilots make as much as $200K a year doing a job that is highly satisfying, that they're generally passionate about, and that has huge supply and minuscule demand (usually about a thousand applicants for each opening)? To be fair, most professional pilots spend decades working their way up an incredibly difficult and poorly-paid career ladder before they earn those six-figure salaries--but they prove it can be done. Why was I able to make a reasonable, competitive wage at a non-profit hospital, along with all the doctors, therapists, nurses, aides, and non-clinical staff? Then I asked her if there were ANY psychotherapists who made decent livings, or who actually got wealthy doing psychotherapy. She rattled off a half dozen people she knew personally who were doing quite well by any standards. One by one, we burst each myth. If airline pilots can command astronomical salaries when there are a thousand ready to take their jobs, why not psychotherapists, or museum professionals? How can some non-profits afford to pay fairly? If even a few people in a profession can succeed financially, what's their secret? If doing good in the world or being passionate about your work means sacrificing a decent standard of living, how come there are so many people who manage to circumvent that rule? Several things came out of our research and discussions. If people are interested, I'll be glad to share them with the list, but this post is already getting too long. Chuck Stout Exhibits Design and Development Denver Museum of Natural History 303-370-8364 [log in to unmask] ========================================================Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).