Attendant's View Blog and Cartoons

Unsolicited Best Intentions

16/6/2018

The awkward moment when your museum finds that a local facebook page has been cheerfully copy/pasting your facebook events to create Their Own event pages, because they think it'll help your events reach more people.

What is mainly seems to do is reach people, confuse them, and make them frustrated over unanswered questions in the event discussion section.

Why didn't we answer your question on the event page? We weren't notified about a question on the event page. There isn't a question on the event page. Oh, that's a link to an event page which isn't ours. But looks exactly like our event page...

Road to hell, best intentions, paving, and all that.

Let's share good news

13/6/2018

I'd like your good museum stories!

I mentioned while chatting with a representative from Museums Journal that museum staff should embrace and shout out more about the good things which happen to them. Because it's those moments that keep us going, and often tip the day massively back into the light again.

I'd like to turn some of your "then suddenly the noisy kids were engrossed" or "my colleagues bough me flowers" into cartoons which show the rewarding side and beauty of working in museums and galleries.

Please comment here, drop me a message on my contact form, or let me know on Facebook or Twitter!

You can be anonymous if you like (I know most of you prefer that) or open about who, what and where. It's your choice.

Looper

6/6/2018

1. Lengthy series of emails as we establish with someone planning a visit what we can and can't provide for them.
1.5. They engage emotional blackmail to try and get what they want.

2. We reach an understanding. In which we carefully aren't going outside of the bounds of what we offered to begin with.

3. They are happy, but tell us to contact someone else, now organising the visit.
3.5. We wonder why we have to contact them, not them us, but, OK.

4. We contact them, nervously including the line "Hopefully you are up to speed on the discussions with your colleague."

5. An entirety different person contacts us, to say they're running the visit.

6. They ask for THE EXACT SAME THINGS we refused to do for the first person.

Installation Frustration

4/6/2018

Never Alone

10/5/2018

See also "Don't practice dance moves with the cleaning brush unless you want security watching the CCTV to pass comment on your form." and "Playing the flute after you have finished cleaning and before the gallery opens to visitors, to make the most of the acoustics, is acceptable only by prior agreement."

Prior Knowledge

25/4/2018

That awkward moment when one of the tour group might know more about the subject than the tour guide.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

12/4/2018

William Reskimer, drawing c. 1532–33 and portrait c. 1532- 4, by Hans Holbein the Younger.

My final of my cartoons from "things I overheard while visiting Charles I: King and Collector. "

How well do we reach visitors with announcements?

4/4/2018

Since the end of January ish we prominently listed our Easter opening hours on our website, and mentioned this on social media.
In the building we has posters with the Easter opening hours.
In website blogs and updates we occasionally called back to the Easter opening hours.
In the run up to Easter we posted regular reminders, and links to the website Easter opening hours, on social media.
In the week before Easter our email newsletter listed our Easter opening hours.

Someone has blamed us of “only announcing you were closed on social media when it was pretty much your opening time".

On the one hand, do you not check opening hours before driving for miles at Easter?
On the other, have we fallen down here?

Charles I: King and Collector - I finally write up my visit!

27/3/2018

There have been many many reviews written about the Royal Academy’s Charles I: King and Collector exhibition, pretty much all of which boil down to “you're not going to see the likes of this again, some waffle about a new perspective on King Charles, it's good, bloody well go and see it”

And I concur.

I've already shared some of the comics I drew after my visit, but now here's the view from a punter, who knows about art mainly thanks to the content on BBC iplayer, and a brief stint of asking people to not touch things in a gallery.

National Trust looking for Assistant Curators - It's fantastic

22/3/2018

The National Trust are launching a 3 year fixed term programme to develop a new team of Assistant Curators, currently recruiting for 8 roles across all regions of the National Trust.

As pointed out by @kathleenlawther on Twitter, this is a Very Good Opportunity:

"@nationaltrust is recruiting Assistant Curators at £27K, giving on the job training and development, recognising skills gained outside the sector and not insisting on academic qualifications for applicants"

When you look into it, oh yes, this is a very open offer, apparently aimed at getting a more diverse Curatorial team, and understanding that those coming into the role will require training and development along the way.

"We are particularly interested in considering applications from people from a wide range of diverse backgrounds who may or may not hold formal qualifications in the heritage or museum sector, but who can offer evidence of relevant experience and personal capabilities."

It's a shame that this seems so good, as one would hope that what they are offering would be industry standard for a position like this. It's not though, as so often the expectation is that you've got a "piece of paper to prove you are clever" rather than relevant hands on experience, and that you're willing to work for almost tuppence because it's such as hotly fought for position.

So if you're after a change, or just after a job at all, have a look.

careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/#/vacancy-detail/63207