Attendant's View Blog and Cartoons

Burning with indignation

3/11/2020

If a historic or heritage venue, heck, any venue, says they have smoking policies, please do obey them. Odds are it isn't purely draconian, but is, for example, to protect vulnerable items, or prevent sensitive alarm equipment going off and you all having to go and stand outside while the food goes cold and the fizzy goes flat. Also, it doesn't matter who you are, what you paid for, or who you know, if you've been told, you’ve been told. Security don't muck about.

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He's New Here

11/4/2019

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No Photos Please

16/10/2018

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Unsolicited Best Intentions

16/6/2018

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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.

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For posterity

3/10/2017

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I must not do this if we remodel the museum in the future.
I must not do this if we remodel the museum in the future.
I must not do this if we remodel the museum in the future.

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Glamour

30/3/2017

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When you point out in a sudden panic to a colleague "DON'T PUT YOUR HAND THERE!" and then have to chisel lumps of dried on nasal matter from an exhibition wall.

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Musuem experiences in the School Holidays

5/9/2016

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I’m not saying that these wouldn’t happen at other times of the year, just that they certainly happened during the school summer break at our museum.

Picking up what I thought was a piece of paper from the floor, but it was wet, chewed, ham.
A visitor placing their bag “out of harm’s way” on top of a display cabinet, intending to leave it there all day. Cue our explaining about bomb scares, and the very real fact that their bag could have caused a fire, sat as it was in direct contact with the lighting for the cabinet and hot to touch when we found it.
A visitor pointing out that the lights were off in a cabinet. Discovering it had been deliberately unplugged at the wall. We suspect someone wanted to cheekily charge their mobile phone.
Cleaning a glass cabinet covered at knee height in so many very opaque hand and face prints, and so much wiped nasal matter, we firmly believe it wasn't a normal child, but some form of biological weapon testing in toddler form. How could a single child be that sticky and not actually have adhered to the cabinet?!
A small child purposefully, slowly and methodically poking their entrance ticket through a gap until it was stuck inside a locked display cabinet. It was part of the display for the rest of the weekend.
If you are sat drinking coffee and your children are four rooms away from you, they are not being accompanied by an adult. If you now want to leave, upset that we don’t trust your 12 year old to be mature enough to accompany their 9 year old brother, that’s fine by us, but a shame for them.
Lots of adorable and badly written messages in the visitor comments book about it being “amaysing” and “the best moseum ever”

More museum holiday fun? Find out what I've overheard in the holidays here.

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"Why is this paper wet?"

22/8/2016

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I thought it was a piece of paper on the floor of the museum.
I honestly thought I was just picking up a receipt or a crunched up ticket.
That was why I blithely picked it up.
And then froze as I pondered "Why is this paper wet?"

AND IT WAS HAM.

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Historic office space

6/7/2016

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A previous venue I worked at had some offices in the older refurbished areas of the building, as well as the newly built extension. They were cramped, but very beautiful as a work space. One staff member had regular "visitors", as her office was the first door at the very top of the main stair case.

To get to the top of the stairs, people had to actively climb over or unclip two rope barriers, and squeeze around or move a Private sign on a freestanding post.

On one occasion, she had to ask a visitor if they would delete the photo they had just taken of her sitting at her desk.

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Family Friendly doesn't mean bubble wrapping everything

4/6/2016

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I just had to have the same conversation three times regarding "You shouldn't chase your sister near the big glass cabinets"

In the first instance the children stopped, and the parents backed me up with a sorry smile and "Come over here, don't do that."

In the second instance, the parents were in another room entirely, with a closed door between them and their children aged about 4 and 7. "Sorry, we didn't realise they had slipped in there."

In the third instance they were in the same room, and could see the children. I asked the parents "I really don't want to administer any first aid today. Please make sure they understand about all of the glass in here."

The parents were well dressed, well spoken, and apparently utterly indifferent to, or blissfully unaware of, the impact their children were having on other visitors, and also the potential hazard of allowing very young children to run around a museum.

This happened yesterday, and I bring it up because kids and accidents are a big topic at present.