My work in the Museum on International Museums Day

18.05.2024

The views expressed in this piece of writing do not reflect the views of any organisation that I work at. They are my own personal views. I have heavily censored this piece and taken out more personal comments as this piece is intended to give a general and apolitical idea of my day to be on the safe side.

In the morning, I started off the day by giving the tours which I have written. My darlings and pets, my tours explore issues of art, fairness, equality and bias. What was best of all was that I was able to give the tours to families with children. The mothers are thankful because they get to hear about art and culture, away from the daily cares of the family and the children. The fathers listen patiently. Some of them are interested, some seem interested only because their partners are interested. Some of the children listen and interact with the questions. Some of the children clearly pay no attention to anything that is said. But, you hope that you are planting the seeds for the future and for justice. Preparing the grounds for all to share their vision in a just society.

This was followed by a stint on ticketing. The pleasures of ticketing are knowing that you know the knowledge about all of the various ticketing combinations: concessions, offers, third party vendors. You can use that knowledge to help the museum’s mission and to sell tickets to walk in customers, persuade them to purchase and come in with your knowledge of the museum. And, also, there is a challenge to try and sell as many souvenir guides and tote bags as possible. To aid carers with the special children with sensory bags and headphones. I helped quite a few today. I also spoke French to several customers – I am basically fluent for the purposes of the museum. Ticketing helps me practice my speaking skills in the language. For this role, loving the place you work at and loving to open access to it for everyone motivates you to perform as well as possible.

Next, there was the welcome to the museum’s galleries and helping the children to navigate activities around the museum. This is one of my favourite roles in the galleries. Because how often in life do you get to give people an adventure to go on together, which is what the activity is? I tell people about the story that we are telling in the museum. I show them the ropes to the wonderful place where I work.

More tours again. The highlights today? An Indian family who were completely enraptured by the tour and left me some wonderful feedback. And then there was a visitor from Colorado that was also a tour guide and she professionally assessed me and told me that I had done a wonderful job. She was very testing – she asked me a whole heap of questions about art materials!

There was the patrol of the main gallery next. Here, it is a case of problem solving. I reported some things to maintenance. I reunited families that had strayed from each other, including stopping a little blonde girl in a rainbow dress from crying like her heart was going to break and taking her worries away from her by showing her that I was a strong adult that could solve her problems – I made her stop crying in five seconds. I broke up an argument between some protective parents and smoothed things over. I investigated a dangerous incident which could have caused some injury – children being naughty. I talked to some of the customers and asked them how their day was going. I directed someone with a research enquiry. I showed directions to people. I stamped cards. I gave out stickers for completed adventures. I took photographs of families all smiling and enjoying their time in the museum. I also told off people for misbehaving, dealt with abandoned property and made sure everything in the museum was clear, clean and safe. I take all my duties seriously and don’t look at any task as being beneath me. The visitors are our guests and our responsibility.

I hadn’t bought lunch so I went to my cupboard and just heated up two small plastic tubs of spaghetti in tomato sauce.

After lunch, it was the main gallery again. Activities included dealing with a case of mild vandalism in the museum, investigating a potential issue with the facilities (luckily there was no issue) and also dealing with a first aid incident. I also had a full blown conversation in French with a woman who had a child with her. Good practice again. The end of the day was clearing the museum and making sure all the exhibits and art was in order.

Throughout the day, I talked to the other museum staff in Visitor Experience, the Learning Team, one of the Senior Managers who was very pleased to see me after a while, the Maintenance Team, the Cleaners, and the Retail Staff. It takes a multi disciplinary team to run a museum.

What was one of the biggest highlights of the day? Another staff member came to me with a query. This staff member had asked several other staff members about that query. Nobody knew anything about it. But I knew. And when I told this staff member, they told me that the knew that I would know even if nobody else did. That’s how much my colleagues respect me and my experience in the museum.

Quite a satisfying International Museums Day. I do love my job. I work in museums to spread education. And I always feel that I do that at the end of the day.

Staying Upbeat – The Mental Challenges of a Customer Facing Role

Dr Suneel Mehmi – Visitor Experience Assistant and Tour Guide (London)

04.04.2024

When everything is fine, it is not hard going. You enjoy meeting new people from all the varied walks of life all around the world. You enjoy talking about things that you are passionate about: art, history, culture. You enjoy inspiring people and making their day. The customers are like your friends and guests to the place.

However, as soon as you feel sad, everything changes. Because now, you have to put on a brave, happy face. You have to conceal the sadness inside. All the insistent troubling thoughts you have to choke down. You have to fake being upbeat and happy. You slap the fake smile on your face. You laugh even though you feel like crying. You push everything down so that it can’t come to the surface.

You become an actor with a performance of joy.

One time, I watched an interview with the Hindi film actor Anil Kapoor. He was shooting the movie Mr. India, one of his finest performances. There was a scene where he discovered the powers of invisibility and he was supposed to be deliriously happy. Actually, he confided to the interviewer, when he had to shoot that scene, it was one of the saddest days in his life. At the time, I thought to myself what a cruel career he was involved in. But the more and more you work in a customer facing role, the more you have to perform emotionally (the more you have to hide your sadness from friends and family)

In any workplace, such is the culture in the Western world, you have to hide the fact that you are sad. But since customer service is a performance, you have to do it in an exaggerated way in a customer facing role. This is the mental challenge of the role. You have to completely eliminate your emotional self and personal life from the equation so that you can perform. You have to wear a mask, forget about yourself and what is going on in your life. The role calls for the mastery of emotion. You forget yourself so that you can form a bond of empathy with your guest and make their day. You forget about your happiness so that you can make the happiness of the other. It is the extinction of self, the act of altruism, the act of putting others before yourself. This is the greatest mental challenge of a customer facing role.

Why I Work in Museums and Art Galleries as a Visitor Experience Assistant

02.04.2024

I have a PhD and several degrees, including ones from a top university and First Class Honours. And when people find out, they ask me, ‘Why are you working in a museum as a Visitor Experience Assistant?’

The very fact that these people ask this question is revealing. These people think that the job is low status and low paid. They think it doesn’t require any skills, that it is a dead end job. That it is not a job for a professional person. Perhaps they think that the job requires no education or talent. That the job is not meaningful in any way.

Whey then, do I work as a Visitor Experience Assistant in Museums and Art Galleries? Do I really care what other people think?

No I don’t care what other people think. Other people are imposters, status-obsessed, uncultured, boring. They will work in an unsatisfying job for money and a bit of power.

On the other hand, I work in a job that gives me meaning in life. I believe in education and its power. When I work, I help people to educate themselves in their free time and have fun doing it. Unlike a state education and compulsory learning, I give them the things they need to be able to be free and learn. This job gives me a mission in life: to spread learning, to change this world of ignorance, to give culture to the people and, especially, the children.

This job is like a holiday to me. I enjoy it. I am in the most beautiful places in the world guarding treasures, the most important aspects of our history and heritage. I get to help people which makes me feel even better about myself. This job gives me not only purpose, but happiness.

And the people in this line of work are artists, musicians, writers, actors. All the creative people that you can find. We have wonderful conversations and we are all good friends with each other. We care about each other and we are all on the same wavelength.

This job gives me the time to think when it is not super busy. This job gives me a good life and work balance. This job lets me into so many museums and art galleries for free. I live the lifestyle of a millionaire doing this job.

People think you don’t have to do anything as a Visitor Experience Assistant. They are wrong.

While I have been working as one, I have helped to kick off the tours project in a museum and written my own tour scripts which involved research and original thinking – skills derived from my PhD course. I have given tours that other people have written – which required the skills of memory, performance, public speaking, humour, people management. Peppered with original research to add the extra flavour.

While I have worked as a VEA, I have planned and designed learning activities for children during half term. Which required the skills of imagination, creativity, planning, understanding of children and education.

While I have worked as a VEA, I have attended meetings about people and resources and contributed ideas and solutions. Skills which required creativity, compassion, empathy, public speaking, the ability to make arguments and the ability to innovate.

Those are the extra things. In the ordinary course of the job, you are responsible for giving a great experience to people, for being able to talk to everyone, to teach people about the exhibits, to look after the health and safety of everyone, to be able to work with several different teams, to be able to think on your feet to solve any problem that arises. You have to be able to know your museums and art galleries inside out and to know massive areas of history, culture and art.

So when people say do something with your PhD, do you know what I say? I say that getting my thesis published as a monograph with a top publisher or articles with the top academic journals didn’t make me happy. It didn’t give me anything. But working as a VEA has given me pay, good friends, good perks, good experiences and memories, happiness. It has given me a career in museums.

The petty, selfish people that undervalue arts, culture and people skills, that ask me why I work as a VEA, revealing their insensitivity and patronising nature, these are the people that are wrong. They think money, status and power is what you need in this world. What you need in this world is to find your niche, your people, your destiny, your happiness.

Working as a VEA allows me to remain a writer, an artist, a poet. Working as a VEA allows me to study an Art History degree with the Open University in my mornings and evenings. Those are my ambitions and those are the things that direct how I live my life, my work. For me, the most important thing is fulfilment, not what the ignorant value. It is what I value that matters. It is my choice. I have what I wanted.

Everything I want from a museums career I get through volunteering: art history scholarship in an Interpretation department, being a Virtual Curator on social media online. I am getting every cerebral pleasure and satisfaction from what I am doing. I am being read by tens of thousands of people on social media.

What more could you ask from a job than happiness and to change the world of ignorance? The fulfilment of duty, pleasure, education and inspiration?