If you've been asked to perform important work pro bono --work for which
museums normally provide a wage or salary--ask yourself a few questions. Is
the museum new and struggling? Has it incurred a recent (emphasis on
recent) hardship, like loss of major donor, staff walk-off, death, etc.? If
not, there are critical observations you must make. Do you see multiple
signs that significant stewardship tasks are woefully behind? Does everyone
have a ready excuse? Do the numbers of volunteers doing curatorial,
collections management and/or administrative work far exceed the number of
paid staff? If so, museum staff may be at wit's end and your institution's
board may be used to a state of collective negligence--and may have a
purpose "other" than the mission statement--such as personal enjoyment,
community, etc. It's a situation that won't get better without a
crisis--that you may find yourself in the middle of! Your good work may
save the collection, or the day--but in the long run you're being used,
P.T. Barnum-style. Learn all that you can, grow, save the collection, if
you can--but get your plan "B" together. Good Luck!


Rebecca Trussell


> [Original Message]
> From: Indigo Nights <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 8/4/2005 6:23:08 PM
> Subject: Re: Issue of possible employment.
>
> 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
> [log in to unmask]
>
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