I work at a small museum. I am the only employee. It is winter where I live -Northern Hemisphere lol – and the museum does not have heating.
As a result my 35 hours were cut to 20 – I am fine with this – and the museum is closed to the public. I am also fine with that.
So my days mainly consist of me going into work, moving shit around to catalogue it, and doing some conservation cleaning as I go.
During the last week or so of October my 'boss' – president of the board that governs the museum, closest thing I have to a boss – asked me to take some time and set a small gallery into an exhibition to ''highlight what the museum has to offer'' because we need to renovate. So I set about doing that. Its a task because she wants me to use 3 related objects, but in order to do that I need to empty out the 100s of small objects in the space, paint it, and create interpretation. So I get started on that.
I nearly complete removing the objects – which takes a few steps to catalogue, condition check, and pack for storage near the end of November she stops by with another board member and they tell me to forget about the exhibition, just focus on the inventory because the renos we need might mean we can't open on time next year anyway. So I do.
We had a cold snap but I set about 33 per cent of the objects with liquid labels and put numbers on roughly 10 per cent since then.
Then today she comes back with that board member and ANOTHER who will NOT be on the board by the end of the year – she's too busy and has handed in her resignation already – who have me go through what I've done since we closed to the public at the end of August – most of which I have presented at board meetings – and then tells me she wants me to /reset/ the exhibition with all the things I spent days organizing and taking out. I can do it. I always take pictures before doing anything. but. IT WAS HER IDEA THE WHOLE TIME.
And they were annoyed with the boxes etc I have out at the moment. They made it a rule that I cannot work downstairs so I brought up a bunch of archive boxes that need sorting before I closed the door, but there's no where to store them upstairs because its a museum gallery space and so they're pilled up in corners etc as much as they can be.
AND. for some stupid reason she thinks that because my contract ends in mid April I will work up to that day, and then walk out with the museum looking exactly like it does now. Instead of, you know, leaving it in better shape than when I got here.
This stupid meeting that just reversed her own idea from a month or two ago lasted an /hour/ because I only work 20 hours a week, that's god damned 5 per cent of my hours on a stupid meeting that didn't even need to happen.
And the thing is, I like my job. I love doing the work that I'm doing and I am fucking good at it. When I first moved here, before dealing with the board as much, I was prepared to spend the next 5 years bringing this museum kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Now though, I am working on PhD applications as we speak to get away from this shit.
tempted to get a job at a grocery store or something and leave them to twiddle their thumbs while trying to get someone else with my training to work with them.