Robert, one thing in your story really hit home, as I've learned the lesson
from hard experience and lots of soul-searching once or twice during my
museum admin days. The lesson is: when you have a problem with one employee
(or volunteer), never NEVER send out a blanket memo correcting everybody. It
may seem the most expeditious thing, and may help avoid a confrontation
(initially), but it offends a whole bunch of people who did nothing wrong
and sometimes totally misses the intended recipient. Hard as it may be, you
must deal with such incidents one-on-one.
I don't mean to lecture you Robert - you seem quite in control in your world
- but there's bound to be one up n'coming person out there who might
remember this at a key moment.
-Not surprisingly, the rule also applies to your relationship with your kids!


At 08:56 AM 02/02/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Forgot that we were relating volunteer horror stories.  Here's one:
>
>An older male volunteer was serving as a docent in our main exhibit when a
>group of high school students were visiting.  When a smaller group of those
>students who were black entered the exhibit, he turned to another docent
>and said "keep yours eyes open to make sure they don't steal anything."
> One of the students heard him and reported it to her teacher who, in turn
>contacted me.  She was somewhat irate to say the least, as was I.
>
>Rather than conduct a lengthy investigation to confirm who said it, I sent
>a message to all volunteers relating the incident and reminding them that
>such comments were unacceptable.
>
>A bunch of the other volunteers then came to me to protest that my message
>suggested they made the statement and that they were offended.  I assured
>them that this was not the case and that I had taken a short-cut in the
>hope that the offending party would find that the shoe fit.
>
>I then went to the high school and apologized to the whole class,
>explaining to them that the comment was totally inappropriate.
>
>What surprised me was the reaction I got from a Board member who pitched a
>fit over my having apologized to the students.  He asked if I  would have
>done the same if the students toward home the comment was targeted had been
>white.  I of course, said that I would.  He expressed his doubts, then went
>on to rant about how tired he was of playing up to "these minorities:, etc.
>etc.
>
>Needless to say, I found out real quickly, who the red-neck on  my board
>was.  The incident passed.  We did not invite the particular volunteer back
>and the incident was  soon forgotten.  Things were pretty touchy for
>awhile, though.
>
>
>------
>Robert Handy
>Brazoria County Historical Museum
>100 East Cedar
>Angleton, Texas  77515
>(409) 864-1208
>museum_bob
>[log in to unmask]
>http://www.bchm.org
>
>----------
>From:   Heleanor Feltham[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent:   Tuesday, February 02, 1999 8:39 AM
>To:     [log in to unmask]
>Subject:        Volunteer horror story
>
>The key thing about my volunteer horror story, I think, is that if you
>read it carefully, you will probably realise that we had all the usual
>things in place, training that included multicultural awareness, visitor
>sensitivity, presentation skills, working with children, dealing with
>difficult visitors (I would recommend the John Cleese training films on
>difficult customers); assessment, counselling procedures, alternative
>employment options, warnings, even firing procedures but in the case of
>our little old dragon lady, NONE of it worked!
>
>We interview potential volunteers just as we do potential staff, and our
>volunteer coordinator has developed an excellent and very detailed policy
>document which covers practically everything (except dragons).  We have
>over 170 volunteers of very varied age and interests; some work behind
>the scenes, some with visitors (taking tours, running touch trolleys,
>helping schools etc) and 99% of them are a joy to work with.
>
>Heleanor Feltham
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
Jane Sproull Thomson