Got a degree in 2012 and I basically gave up in 2015. I've been working retail since 2015 and have been volunteering with a small all-volunteer staff museum since 2013. I mean, I've known since 2018 that this wasn't really going to happen for me, but I did just start a paralegal training program so it kind of feels official now.

I really don't regret going to graduate school or the years I did try in earnest to pursue a museum career. I've found the reality though is that unless you can commute to or live in a big city, there's just not much opportunity.

Never say never, of course (maybe I could do an online course for museum studies in 20 years or something) but yeah. Giving up on a dream is kind of a whoa moment for me.

My old museum has a few living animals as well. Mostly small animals like amphibians, reptiles and insects. One of them is an axolotl, very chill and cute creature floating in his water tank. Kids can usually recognise him thanks to Minecraft, but he may be surprising to older adults who have never seen one before.

One day, an older man ended up completely baffled by the axolotl. He just kept staring at the water tank and asked us what it was. We explained it to him and he responded, still amazed: "That's the ugliest thing I have ever seen!" Two of us rushed to defend the poor axolotl with some interesting facts, like his ability to regrow limbs, how his "hair" are actually his gills, or how people usually own light pink axolotls (ours has the natural, dark brown colour). The man was even more confused and started asking odd questions about axolotls turning into a Godzilla. Not sure whether he was sarcastic or just didn't know what to say.

However, I think we successfully introduced him to learn more about this strange animal. He actually dragged a small plastic kids chair to the water tank, sat down to face it, and continued observing the axolotl, still looking very baffled. I had to move on to other visitors, so not sure for how long he stayed there. It was still a very adorable experience.

Hey there, long time no see!

I reopened this subreddit six months ago to make sure that it won't become dead and forgotten as many other subreddits. Unfortunately, its topic is rather niche and it quickly became something like my personal blog, as I have been the only person posting here.

Life flows and takes unexpected turns, and it did so with me as well. I no longer work at a museum or similar institution, although my current job is still research oriented. However, I am going to keep this place open and occasionally post some old personal tales which more or less fit the theme.

Anyone stumbling upon this subreddit and having a story to share, feel free to post here as well! You don't have to be an employee of a museum or similar institution - tales from visitors are welcome too.

Thank you for reading. Have a nice weekend.

This is a tale from several years ago when I was still young and naive, new to the adulthood and higher education. I found a summer job at the castle museum which was pretty far from me, but they were offering the summer housing. So, I applied and was invited for the interview. The timing wasn't great - it was cold January, I had a limp from the foot injury (nothing serious, just annoying), and it took several hours to get to the museum.

So, I did travel. Almost two hours in the express train, waiting at the train station, then another hour in a small local train. I knew the town a little from the older family vacation, but had never been there on my own. At first, I tried to take a bus to the museum, but misunderstood the stops order and got out too early (and yes, the driver who had sold me a ticket to a different stop was staring). Luckily, the place was still close, but I had to walk uphill a lot. Not so much fun with ice, snow and a limp.

After arriving to the museum, I was greeted by two older women who then interviewed me. It seemed to go well... until they dropped the bomb. They had never intended to hire me and actually openly told me so at the end. Why? I was a foreigner and they didn't want to deal with the insurance for me. Yes, really. One would tell, why invite me then? Well, they were actually quite open about that too: they liked my CV and just really wanted to meet me in person.

I don't remember my reaction, but I felt very dumbfounded. We told goodbyes to each other, I limped back to the train station (didn't bother with the bus again) and took the same route back home. All the time and money for nothing. I probably should have reported them for discrimination, but it's too late now anyway. After doing various jobs, I can tell you that the insurance thing is indeed more complicated for foreigners here, but much more for employees than their employers. I've had some "fun" with that too.

This will be a short one, just to keep this place sorta active.

Our interactive museum is very kids friendly and families with kids are usually the most common visitors. This also means that things need to be appropriate for them (and, of course, while keeping everything both chill and professional). Almost never a problem, until one day when I was at the front desk, aka the first person who had to deal with visitors.

On that day, three young women entered. Even though it was the middle of the day, they were obviously coming from the bachelorette party. How did I know? Well, their dresses... and the dick shaped balloon one of them was holding. It was very detailed and with a smiling face. I was mortified. The entire building full of families with kids who would be very upset over seeing it. My brain was quickly trying to come up with a solution, like offering to keep the balloon in the employee only rooms during their visit. That should hopefully work.

While I was thinking, the three women were still near the front door, looking around but not yet approaching me at the front desk. They didn't seem to be very pleased. The decorations and children's yells from the other rooms likely made it look like this place is for kids only, even though adults can and do enjoy the exhibitions as well. Lots of adults aren't sure whether to even enter. These three women weren't sure either and ended up leaving after a few minutes, without ever talking to me, thus sparing me from having an awkward conversation about their balloon.

Our museum has a few living animals in some exhibitions. Mostly small animals: lizards, snakes, amphibians and insects. They have their own nice aquariums or terrariums. One of them is a very adorable axolotl. He's mostly chilling somewhere in his aquarium, but if you are lucky, you may catch him actively swimming around too. He sometimes hides behind objects and decorations, so people can't always see him. I don't work at exhibition where he is placed, but I like to visit it and just check him out from time to time. My coworkers sometimes joke that I like to see him more than them.

During one of the special guests tours, I was really looking forward to introducing our visitors to this small fella. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen, likely hiding again. I asked my coworker and fellow guide who worked at that specific exhibition (unlike me). And he dropped the bomb. He said that the axolotl had died. That floored me. I actually broke the character and mourned the poor axolotl right in front of our visitors. It wasn't professional, but I didn't care at that moment. We didn't have much time to discuss the manner further on that day.

The next day, I returned to the exhibition to ask more about what had happened. Imagine my shock when I glanced into the aquarium and the supposedly dead axolotl was just chilling there as if nothing had happened. Only his feather gills moved from to time, signalling that he was very much alive and could breathe just fine. A huge wave of relief washed over me. I rushed to my coworkers to interrogate them and they had no idea why the coworker from the previous day claimed that the axolotl had died. They hadn't heard anything and the axolotl seemed to be in a good health.

This was months ago and the axolotl is still doing just fine by now. I haven't had a chance to ask my coworker why he told him that the poor axolotl had been dead when it was clearly alive. Not that it matters now anyway. What matters that the axolotl is fine and we all love him.

One summer day, I was working at the front desk at the museum. We had had lots of visitors and I was still counting the cash after we had closed down. The place was empty aside from me and the shift manager who was doing something in her office. She had already turned off all the lights, so the building was completely dark because of our small windows, aside from the front desk, her office room and the staircase.

Given the summer time, lots of tourists were exploring the city every day and many would stumble upon us too. Three of them showed up on that day. Ten minutes after the closing time. They walked in, saw the big dark space and me in the only spotlight. I called out to them that we were closed - which was pretty obvious from the dark and empty interior, but just in case. They acknowledged me and I expected them to leave. Well, they didn't.

Instead, they walked right into the first exhibition - which was completely dark at that time and you couldn't see a thing there. The museum is designed in a way that this exhibition is actually closer to the main entrance than the front desk, so they didn't have to walk pass me. I couldn't run after them because I had cash all over the front desk while counting it. Couldn't risk it, not even in an almost empty building.

So, I had to yell out at them. Very loudly to be heard. I guess my voice isn't very nice when I am annoyed. They got offended and complained but it made them leave the exhibition and eventually the building too without even approaching me. It kinda ruined my evening and I suppose theirs too.

Maybe I am too anxious in social situations, but I can't imagine just straight-out walking into a dark and closed exhibition while an employee is staring right at me and telling me they were closed.

This isn't a story related to my workplace or even my story (apologies haha), just something one of my friends experienced at one museum-like place. Just to explain things... I am from a European country which was (like many others) strongly affected by the holocaust. As a result, most Jewish communities were fully destroyed and never revived after the war, leaving behind synagogues, cemeteries and other buildings. Synagogues are now reused as museums and cultural centres, while also serving as a memory for the long gone Jewish communities.

My friend was lucky to get to see one such synagogue which otherwise isn't easily accessible, thanks to the connections he has. He had a private tour with a very educated older man who takes care of the place. All went well. However, since they left the main door open, a small frog got in and quickly disappeared. They couldn't find it, so they figured it had likely gotten out again. They proceeded with the tour and eventually left, set the alarm on and locked the synagogue. If this alarm detects any movement indoors and a correct code isn't typed in within several seconds, the alarm is set off. And it is loud.

You can already see where this is going. Something set the alarm off some time after my friend left. The guide rushed back, realising that it must have been the small frog. He did his best but couldn't find it. He left, but the alarm began ringing again. Yet another search was unsuccessful. As a result, the alarm had to be turned off and the building wasn't protected for a few days. Some time later, the alarm was turned back on and nothing set it off again. The frog was never found and it's a mystery what happened to it. Hopefully it found another way out.

One summer day, we had an unexpected visitor in the exhibition. It didn't pay for a ticket and instead used an open window to slip in. Of course, I am talking about a giant hornet. Way too big for our liking. The exhibition was quite empty, so we were mostly observing it from afar and making sure it didn’t harm anyone. Nobody wanted to be a hero and actually try to hit that big flying insect with something. I had seen before what these monsters can do (and how it can end with a trip to the ER).

The shift was almost over, yet this big hornet still couldn’t figure out how to get outside through one of the many open windows. We were still afraid to even approach it. As a result, it ended up being locked up in the building overnight (and luckily didn’t set off the alarm). We warned our coworkers, who were of course thrilled to come to their shift the next day.

Luckily, as it turned out, the problem solved itself overnight. Our coworkers told us that the hornet had flown into another exhibition during the night and ended up caught in a big spider web. The spider didn’t bother to go after the yellow monster, but its web helped our coworkers to finally get rid of the invader. At least one bonus to not cleaning the place very often.

(TW: mentions of violence, no details)

This happened back in June, the month when we get most school trips. Way too many field trips, given that the management refuses to set a limit. Schools like to go out with kids instead of making them study a few weeks before the summer break. As a result, the building is packed over the roof for over a month, every program is fully booked and trying to find a spare room, and everyone is overworked and stressed out. This includes kids and teachers.

Unfortunately, this has led to some conflicts among kids from visiting schools. Try ramming way too many kids and teens of different ages and schools into exhibitions, and a disaster is bound to happen. There were some heated arguments and meltdowns which we couldn't really do much about as employees. However, I don't think anybody had expected a brutal fight which occurred one day.

I am not sure how exactly it started. One teenager forgot to take his change from the vending machine. His classmate found it and apparently tried to keep it while being very loud about it. Everyone was already stressed out. And these two teens just went for it. They ended up physically fighting over those few coins. Before the fight was broken apart, one of them already had his head bashed open. We did the first aid and then the teachers took over. The student was rushed to the ER. We don't know what happened next, but he was alive and conscious.

We all felt horrible after this incident. It may have been avoidable. May have. We didn't know those two teens, maybe they had behavioural issues, but let's be honest, the fully packed place with everyone being stressed out or misbehaving didn't help. I wish June was different, but we can only do as much as regular employees. Hopefully both students were fine in the end.

Years ago, I used to work in the archives of one museum and research centre. I won't specify the location, even though I no longer live there. This place is pretty big and has lots of outdoors space which most visitors never get to see because they just don't have enough time. The complex is located at the edge of the forest, a short walking distance from the nearest streets. To access it, you have to drive or walk at the edge of the forest.

Well, guess what lives in that forest. Jackals. I had no idea at first. I started working there in the winter and it was already dark outside when my shift ended. The walking path is a little away from the road, not well lit and mostly devoid of people. Pretty spooky. Then one evening, I heard howling somewhere in the distance. Not just one animal howling, but more of them at once. That set me running. The howling wasn't near me, but again, I was walking alone pass the forest in the poorly lit area. The busy streets never felt so distant like in that moment.

I did some googling and figured it was likely jackals, given the location. That was the only time I have heard them, but not my last encounter with them. As I said, the place I was working at is a massive complex. I had some free time to walk around and got to see more distant sections which rarely get seen by visitors. They are basically connected to the forest, there is no fence. I often found myself staring into the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of jackals. Never saw one there.

Instead, I saw my first one in the middle of the complex, during the day. I was walking to the office building and suddenly stumbled upon a small jackal. We both stopped in our tracks and stared at each other. My first thought was "please don't bite me." Well, nothing was happening, so I made a slow move to get my phone and get a picture. As soon as I moved my arm, the likely terrified jackal ran away.

The next and last encounter took place near the entrance. The busiest part of the whole complex, yet there was another small jackal there. It looked a little confused, stopped for a moment in the middle of the plaza and ran away once it found a good escape route without any humans. This one was much further away from me. Both of these encounters happened in the broad daylight.

As much as hearing the howling in the poorly lit path next to the forest was creepy, its source is mostly harmless. Both jackals I have encountered were small (maybe younger), likely terrified and did their best to avoid people. The only few attacks I have read about came from rabid jackals in a different area. They generally tend to avoid humans. Still an interesting experience to see and hear them.

There is one particularly difficult day I remember. Without being warned ahead, my coworker and I showed up at the exhibition in the morning, only to find that almost all the showpieces were moved aside, replaced by several tables and dozens of young people. Turned out these were medical students running the health activities for schools that were about to show up. The management tends to never tell us about these things ahead, so we had to ask the students what was going on.

Then the nightmare began. Every hour for four hours, around eighty kids showed up at the exhibition all at once to do the actives with the med students, moving from one table to another. Each group was similarly big and did the same activities for an hour. While this was happening, regular school trips were also allowed in. For four hours in a row, it was impossible to move around or get to any showpieces without being completely surrounded by other people. The attempt to direct the field trips away failed - if they paid for every exhibition, they had to be let into ours too, regardless of what was happening inside.

The fun part is that if you work at this particular exhibition, you also need to operate 3D printers and a human gyroscope (looks like a regular gyroscope, but has a seat in the middle where people are strapped in for a ride). A gyroscope is pretty tiring to operate after a longer time (sore muscles) and our 3D printers tend to act up, so they need to be checked during the printing process. My coworker was new and still needed someone (me) to shadow her with the gyroscope, given how one must operate it correctly to prevent any harm done to the person riding it. To make matters worse, a group of adult exchange students showed up for the trip and all decided to ride the gyroscope which took over an hour.

As a result, you can imagine what those four hours looked like. Basically running between the gyroscope, 3D printers and showpieces (this is an interactive museum, so people can mess up everything), until giving up on the latter. After the foreign students were done, we violated the house rules and closed the gyroscope for an hour, even though it meant turning people away. It just wasn't sustainable.

The worst was finally over when the health-related activities ended after four hours. My new coworker somehow didn't run away after seeing what this place looks like on difficult days. I complained to the management about the terrible organisations, but as usual, it led to nothing.

Hello all museum/gallery/zoo/aquarium/etc. employees and lurkers with other jobs!

I took over this place after the former sole moderator stopped being active and the subreddit ended up restricted. It's now opened back to the public and waiting for new tales. It's a small place, but I hope to revive it again.

The theme of the subreddit won't change. This is still the place for tales from museums, galleries, zoos, aquariums, and other similar places. Feel free to share anything interesting, courageous, awkward or horrible you have encountered during your work or visit to these places.

The design of the subreddit has been updated to give us a nice "museum vibe" and we now have a few rules as well (nothing limiting, don't worry). The length-based post flairs remain in place and will be automatically assigned to your post based on its length.

Additionally, if anyone would like to help with the moderation of this subreddit, feel free to comment here or send me a modmail. This is a low maintenance subreddit, so one extra mod should be fine.

Thank you u/a_p3rson for running this place for so long. I wish you all good, wherever you are now.

Today at the museum, while I was working at the front desk, a dog entered the building. It arrived with a group of several unrelated families, but they all confirmed it didn't belong to them. The dog ended up running all around the open ground floor before we managed to approach it. It wasn't aggressive, just utterly confused. It had a collar but without any information about the owner. There were no other people anywhere around.

Bringing the dog into the office made it even more stressed out, so it began barking and just wouldn't stop. The police was called (as they deal with runaway dogs), but despite the police station being nearby, they took their sweet time. This mess lasted for over half an hour, after which we brought the dog back outside and gave it some water. It wouldn't stop barking, but it still wasn't aggressive in any way.

Out of nowhere, someone from the first floor's window yelled at the dog to silence it and the dog actually listened. That's how we found the owner. The guy had brought his dog with him, but decided to keep it outside. He had told it to stay sitting in the shadow, outside the view of the front desk, and then went inside and bought the ticket from me. Without ever telling me about his unleashed dog chilling next to our front door. Our museum actually allows dogs in if they are on a leash and don't make a mess - and he would know that if he had asked me or checked our website.

Anyway, the guy got outside, tried to bring the dog back to the spot in the shadow, and speculated that some kids have had to lure the dog inside. Well, the poor dog followed some families in and yes, it's possible that kids were all happy to see a cute doggo. That still doesn't change the fact that the dog shouldn't have been left outside unleashed and without water, plus without telling us employees. We didn't know whom it belonged to, how well it is trained, whether it might attack someone, etc. It may have completely run away. I was later told by my coworker that this guy was also a big asshole to them at the exhibition.

Btw, the police never arrived. We called them off after the owner was found, but it had been over half an hour at that point and the police station is very close to us. Maybe they only took time because it was the case of a runaway dog. However, it made us all wonder how "fast" they would be in other situations. Fingers crossed we don't get robbed.

Ah, gotta love angry people at my job. Very rare yet always crazy.

I recently worked at the front desk at the museum again, selling tickets and souvenirs. Lots of visitors arrived, the vast majority of them nice as usual. Except for this one man. He arrived alone, stinking and impatient. He wanted to buy tickets to one concert. I had no idea what he was talking about, which only made him more frustrated and he started swearing.

After his angry explanation, I told him that we didn't sell concert tickets here. This is a museum. Even when a concert takes place next to us (which was apparently the case here), we aren't in charge of it. He said he didn't have the internet, so how was he supposed to buy those tickets? No idea. At this point, I was getting frustrated as well.

He just froze when I told him "sorry, we don't sell concert tickets here," with a blank stare into the space (not at me). And then he started his rant, loudly complaining about how everything used to work smoothly under the Communists (a reference to the Eastern Bloc, and no, it didn't) and how "slurs against lesbians and gays" are ruining everything now. He then stormed off without even looking back at me, briefly complaining to some random visitor on his way out, and then he left the building.

I was standing there a little shaken. Luckily, the shock quickly turned into... feeling embarrassed for the guy and also grateful for him leaving without actually doing anything serious, I suppose. Also thank goodness he arrived when there were no other visitors at the front desk. The majority of them are families with kids and they really don't need to see this.

I kinda doubt that he doesn't have the internet, given his homophobic rant. It sounded way too similar to stuff you can find online. I also don't know whether he "clocked" me (I belong to the LGBT community) or whether this part of his rant was unrelated to me and it was just a coincidence. You can't really tell just from looking at me.

Anyway, it's apparently the gays' fault that we don't sell concert tickets at the museum.

I work at the very interactive museum. It isn't a place where you look at artefacts behind a glass. Visitors are allowed and encouraged to touch and play with stuff to learn something new or just have fun. That also means that people sometimes come up with the most insane ideas about what to do with the showpieces.

One exhibition has several large plastic cubes which are used to create a picture when placed together properly. They aren't very heavy and won't break when a kid steps or sits on them. And kids sure love doing that or building castles from them. It's kinda fun, but it's necessary to make sure they won't get hurt or won't build too large towers. This innocent stuff isn't the point of this post though. It's the insane creations. There have been two that got burnt to my mind.

During one holiday rush, while I was helping some visitors, one man decided to have fun with the cubes. He ended up building a very large, unstable and unsupported tower from them. One cube on another one, up to the ceiling. Something that kids usually do, just much taller. I was the only employee around, helping someone else at that time. When I finally turned around, the tower was already taller than the man. He was just having a hard time putting the next cubicle on the top because it was already over his head. His two little kids were crawling under that monstrosity. I almost ran to him. Once he noticed me, he immediately started apologising and dismantling the tower. I don't what he was thinking. It was dangerous for everyone around including him.

Another terrible moment would be three like 13-year-old kids. Unsupervised which isn't that uncommon, especially not with school trips (teachers want a break and I don't blame them). They built a stairs-like structure in order to climb on it and touch the ceiling. Again, I don't know what their goal was. I asked them to stop three times. Why so many? Well, because they dismantled the stairs every time, waited for me to start helping other visitors, and then quickly built another structure with the same purpose and climbed on it again. They needed the constant supervision to stop that and eventually left for another exhibition.

I get why small kids see the cubes and decide to build castles and small towers from them. It's cute and fun. I guess I could sorta understand even that group of teenagers building the stairs to touch the ceiling beams. But why would a grown man build a dangerous, unstable tower up to the ceiling? People have weird ideas sometimes.

I work at the interactive museum or rather at the science centre. It means that the visitors are highly encouraged to directly interact with the showpieces, play with them and learn from or about them. There are only a few displayed things which aren't allowed be touched, such as the 3D printers which are usually in use (which doesn't stop kids from touching their very hot beds.)

Of course, this also means that basically all smaller showpieces or all small parts of big showpieces are very easy to steal, and it isn't always possible to closely monitor the entire exhibition to prevent this. It usually isn't a problem and the vast majority of the visitors don't steal anything. But then there are field trips from schools. Some are fine, especially smaller children, and some are full of entitled teenagers. Teachers quite often just release their students into the exhibitions without bothering to check on them during the entire visit. And sometimes, things disappear during these field trips.

Luckily, I've only experienced such thefts twice, both at the military history exhibition. After one high school field trip, the small fake powder keg disappeared. It was hidden in the small tunnel the visitors can enter, and I guess one of the teenagers smuggled it out. We never found it again and we have the new one now. This happened during my shift and I still don't feel well about it. The new keg is so ugly. Also no idea what one will do with the fake keg at home. You can't even open it.

The other time was a partial theft. There are two fake cannonballs placed in the cart next to the fake cannon. They are filled with sand and don't weigh much. During my weekend shift, one of them disappeared. I looked everywhere around the exhibition, including in the most impossible places, and it was nowhere to be found, so I reported it and continued assisting the visitors. Two hours later, while I was walking around the exhibition, I suddenly spotted the second cannonball back in the cart. It absolutely had not been there during the last two hours. To this day, I have no idea who took it, where it was during those two hours, and how it was returned. There is a strong chance that a child took it and it somehow took their parents two hours to notice it, but honestly who knows.

I assume that this happens at other exhibitions as well, but also very rarely. We also sometimes see teenagers bringing something from one exhibition to another and just leaving it there, but that's quite easy to deal with.

We have the model volcano at the museum. Due to the amount of smoke it produces during the eruption, it can only be used once a day and all windows in the room must be kept open, otherwise the smoke starts the very sensitive fire alarm. I don't work at the said exhibition but this is what I was told.

One Sunday a few months ago, a large group rented the large room for their party and they had the volcano in there, apparently without given any instructions about it or just ignoring them. They kept it turned on for so long that the damn thing started the fire alarm twice within like ten minutes and you could smell the smoke in half of the museum. Our alarm is extremely loud and annoying. When it starts, we have to tell the visitors to leave the exhibitions and ideally the building as well, but not everyone did so that day. Most visitors just gathered in the entrance hall.

There is a rule in my country that when the fake fire alarm starts, the system has to be turned off within a few seconds and then you have to immediately call the fire department and let them know. If they come and find out it was the fake alarm, they can fine you. I think the shift manager eventually completely disabled the alarm that day.

Two days after, I was working on the wooden boards outside the museum. Basically removing their roughness with the belt sander and then varnishing them, so lots of mess and noise. Suddenly, the fire alarm started and yes, it was so much louder than my sander. I went to check at the front desk whether it was the fake alarm, and then I returned outside. Yep, somebody turned on the volcano and apparently forgot to open the windows or something.

A few minutes later, I heard some car engine noises. I peeped around the corner and saw two large fire trucks in front of our main entrance. Turned out that they were on their way back to the fire station after putting out the fire somewhere, and they were only two streets from us when the fire alarm started. The shift manager was fast to turn it off and call, but they were faster and actually arrived. I sneaked back inside to eavesdrop and heard the fire captain telling the shift manager that we will most likely get fined for this. And we did.

That was the last time I've heard the fire alarm in action. Granted, I don't work every day, but given how big the fee is for this, I'm pretty sure something was done either with the fire alarm or with the volcano. On one hand, it's very good to have the sensitive fire alarm because it can save the museum in case of the actual fire, but its sensitivity can also backfire sometimes.

This happened earlier this month. I had my shift as a cashier at the museum where I sell both tickets and gifts. When visitors enter the museum, they have to walk across the lobby to me. Suddenly, a large group of ca. fifty people arrived. They were foreign tourists. Their guide, a direct elderly woman, came up to me and asked about the restrooms so I showed her the way. Soon two lines formed in front of them.

I thought that they really needed a bathroom before entering the museum. That wasn't the case. The guide returned to me and revealed that they were actually on their way to the Christmas markets and only needed to use the restrooms. She was told somewhere that we have free toilets for everyone. We don't, albeit we sometimes semi-tolerate when non-visitors do this. They had no idea that there were the restrooms at the markets, or that their bus was actually parking right next to the large mall (which has free restrooms). Communication was a little difficult, as these tourists came from abroad. Luckily their mother tongue was similar to the one used in this country.

While I was talking to the guide, half of the tourists entered the first exhibition which is on the ground floor. The only guy working in there was rightfully horrified, as always when a huge group arrives. At this point, I had to call the shift manager to sort things out. Using the restrooms is one thing, entering the exhibition without paying and tickets is another. The guide apparently had no idea about this either and just kept repeating that this would never happen again. She sent most of the tourists outside, but some remained at the exhibition. I had to kick them out myself. They couldn't really understand me, so I think they mainly left because I sounded angry. Anyway, it finally worked and everyone from that group left the building.

So yeah, this happened. The management knows about it, but I'm not sure whether they will do anything. Not that much can be done. One employee against fifty tourists and one guide who come without a warning to use our restrooms. Luckily, we didn't get a shitty Google review as a result.

This is a weird short story that happened to me recently. I have several jobs at the local museum, one of them being an occasional cashier at the front desk. Despite its name, it actually isn't right at the front of the museum and you can access the rest of the building without even approaching it.

On that day, we had lots of people coming in and out in order to prepare the event. As a result, this particular guy managed to blend it rather easily. I was sorta aware of him, but there really were many people walking in and out at that time. He was holding something that most employees who saw him assumed to be a camera with a small tripod. He asked someone for the bathroom, entered the first exhibition and tried to enter the rest (not possible though - they have turnstiles and require a ticket). So he returned to the ground floor.

The guy then walked up to me at the front desk and showed me what he was holding. It was a small telescope. No idea how he got it but I doubt it belonged to him. He said he needed money for the ride back home (which is a common thing to say when you ask for money here). Then he tried to sell the telescope to the museum. I refused and he tried to sell it to me instead because you know, I was a smart young man who would surely like to own a telescope. I still kept saying no. He was trying really hard and not gonna lie, I was becoming very uncomfortable. Luckily, me not budging and repeating the same thing over and over helped. He left...

...and tried to sell it to the group of women he stumbled upon outside. They immediately went into the museum and asked whether he had stolen it from us. The management checked the cameras and I asked around the exhibitions, but he wasn't even able to enter the only exhibition which is related to space (plus their telescope is much bigger). So yeah, luckily the guy already came with the telescope to the museum, even though he most likely stole it from somewhere.

I don't mind dealing with problematic visitors (not that we get many, luckily) but it would be nice to have to meet the telescope guy again.

Good morning museum lovers and haters! We’re back at it again because this place never fails to entertain, and the holidays seem to bring out all the.. best.. people. I’m going to preface this story by saying our museum offers pay as you wish for tri-state residents only: you choose the donation amount, the minimum is 1¢ per person, we take cash, card, Apple Pay, checks, just about anything. Everything (including a list of ways to verify your residency) is listed out clearly on our website, app, and signs both inside and outside the museum.

A visitor comes up to my close friend with a certain air about him, you just knew he was going to be trouble. He doesn’t say hello, just starts off with he wants to come inside, and doesn’t want to pay anything. Ok well that’s not how it works, if you live in these 3 states you can CHOOSE how much you pay, the amount can’t be zero. “Yeah I live here and in San Diego, I heard it was free in SD and right now I’m living here. So I want to come in for free.”

She tries to explain it again while asking for his ID to verify he does live in this state, he hands her the California ID. She tries to explain that it has to be from this state or he can’t pay what he’d like; but he keeps insisting that that’s the ID he wants to use, he shouldn’t have to show us the other one, he shouldn’t have to pay anything we’re all ridiculous how dare we? At this point she’s given up trying to explain anything to him or get his ID, he wouldn’t even give his zip code, and just asks him how much he wants to pay so we can move him along. “I don’t have any money.” Sir you HAVE to pay something, the minimum is one penny. “I don’t have cash or any cards, I’m on welfare thank you. Besides this is supposed to be free, why am I paying?!”

Deep breath in

She just goes to get our supervisor to try to talk to him because everyone in the vicinity is done with this guy and his ‘tude. Sup comes over starts repeating everything my girl said, while Mr. San Diego starts parroting the same few phrases back about why he shouldn’t have to pay, and he KNOWS he heard that it was free in San Diego. Sup looks him in the eyes, “Ok, pull up the website and show me.” He fumbled with his (new) phone for a minute before going, “you know what, this is ridiculous, you’re an idiot, this place sucks.” My sup gets pissed “oh IIIIII’MMMMM the idiot?!” Mr. SD decides to just turn around and leave, but made sure to keep repeating what an idiot he was as he walked away. While putting in his AirPods.

Now I’m not saying that you can’t be on welfare and not have nice things, (he did show us a welfare card so that wasn’t false) you absolutely live your life however you can. However, how are you going to live in 2 of the most expensive cities in the country and A. Not do any kind of research and B. Not have any method of payment on you whatsoever? What if there was an emergency and you had to take a cab or Uber somewhere? What if your subway card runs out or you need to buy food? The last hour of the day is free admission, but we weren’t exactly going to invite him to come back.

Best part? I found 2 pennies on the locker room floor this morning. He could have brought in a friend!

Honorable Mention

These aren’t long enough for their own posts, but we had 2 different people on the same day absolutely kill us.

The first was upset that pay as you wish is only for residents, as it used to be for everyone but changed several years ago. She used to come here with her dad, and it should still be for all, the usual. Before she leaves, she makes sure to lean over and say “vote republican” like ma’am. Mr. Biden didn’t do this to you, go sulk up with the dinosaurs.

The other lady was spelling out her name to find in the system, and said “G as in God.” Sometimes I wish I had this kind of confidence lord have mercy..

Good morning museum lovers and haters! I’ve been working in my museum for a few months now, and while it grates on your nerves like every other public facing job, it still beats every other customer service job I’ve done.. While I won’t refer to my museum by name, it’s a very famous museum and not the hardest to figure out. Now, onto shark lady!

I’m on register in the main entrance, and another rep comes over and asks if I’m willing to help out a member because I’m trained and he’s having issues? Of course, send them over while I get the computer ready! A lady comes marching over with her two kids and I start asking standard questions to locate her information. She doesn’t have any ID, she was recently in a house fire and lost it all; I’m so sorry to hear that, I can look you up by your name don’t worry! Proceeds to give me 3 different names to try, none of which worked.

She pulls out her phone and starts ranting about this list she has pulled up, places that are always free in the city and WE’RE ON THE LIST! I nod and say, “yes ma’am we are on the list! Because right here beside free, it says (or pay as you wish) and we allow that for residents. In that case, how much would you like to pay?” Ugh I have to pay?! Fine then just $5 whatever we just want to go in! I verify all the information and tickets and have her insert her card, my voice is annoyingly customer service at this point, being as sickly sweet as possible to attempt to make her feel a shred of guilt, then hand her her tickets and sent her off into the depths of the museum, while my coworkers and I shake our heads at each other and take the next guests.

My supervisor comes up about an hour later, said I’m not in trouble, and asks if I had any.. interesting guests today.. I side eye her and asked what happened, y’all.

Apparently, she came marching back in shortly after, and went straight to the desk that had a close friend of mine working. She starts going off about how the stupid girl didn’t give her sharks when she clearly asked for sharks, and she was a member who was in a fire, and how dare we?!?! He apologized and though he wasn’t trained in membership, he’s great at his job and he started going through all the usual routes of finding her like I did, with no luck.

He calls over our supervisor, who literally trained us on membership, and is pure sugar who came alive as a person, to help with the situation. She starts trying to ask questions to figure out the situation and help, when sharks lady just loses it. She starts going off about, how everyone here is so unprofessional, this is the worst customer service she’s ever had, don’t we know she was in a fire?? We’re all just wasting her time, we should never work with the public, at one point she even put her hands OVER HER EARS when my manager was trying to speak to her. Like did she think we were just going to cave if we couldn’t communicate with this shrieking banshee of a woman? Mind you, there are no real sharks in this exhibit, just models and interactive exhibits.

In the end, she asked our sup to write out her name, HER supervisors name, and his contact information; because this woman is horrible and clearly hates all children because she won’t let my babies in to see the sharks. Yes ladies and gents, she actually said the thing, her poor babies.. she gave her the information she asked for and they left in a huff, but the supervisor is one that won’t care at all and will immediately trash the email, I just hope I get a chance to read it..

She came over to mainly verify that she hadn’t asked me for sharks, and that she had also mentioned the fire, and we just kind of laughed and died a little more inside.. thankfully the rest of the day was fairly uneventful and I had a lot of guests who made me laugh so I’d call it a win!

Welp this has been my tale for the day, I can assure you I have plenty more where this came from, especially as the holidays approach. Have a great day and stay strong out there!

So this was from a few months back, but we have a lab space at my job with a bunch of computers and activites.

One day I'm doing my rounds, and through the glass I see a family of 5 (children mainly) screaming and trying to pull up minecraft and youtube on our computers. I, frantically, try to ask the kids to get off the tables, and explain that "these computers are not for minecraft" So i'm frantically trying to stay calm and fix everything, and not 30 seconds go by when the adult of the party comes up to me and starts YELLING at me that

"Well how were they supposed to know that they were not supposed to pull up minecraft on these computers?"

Ma'am. This is a Public Science Museum. No! We do not need you pulling up video games on our computers! Why are you letting your kids sit on the tables and wreck havock on the museum?

This quickly escailates to her calling me a bitch and asking to see my manager. We ended up having to go to the Vice President on the museum whose offical guidance was "Don't talk to the guest"

Gotta love working with the public!

I was in a gallery listening to a teacher talk about a famous painting to her students. She claimed that it was painted after the monarch had been victorious at a battle. She was telling her students that it was all very literal. I'm afra6I couldn't help myself. I jumped in, & explained that the painting was a well known piece of royal propaganda, & the battle to which she referred to wasn't even a battle. It actually annoyed me that she hadn't done her homework.

At the museum I work at, its a major incident if we have a lost child. If the child isn't found within 20 minutes from first reported missing, we have to call the police. Which is fine, the rule is there to keep kids safe.

One day, we had two simultaneous missing child alerts. Everyone scrambled. With three minutes to spare, Manager found the kids. We had another two simultaneous missing child alerts. Then, after the third time it happened, we found out that it was the same dad who lost BOTH his children THREE times.

Buy some reins dude. Seriously, it's really stressful for us when this happens.

They were asking for her resignation at the end of November, which marks the end of our "hosting" season. We spend December through March getting ready for our next season, which begins in April. Our president's term limits to 6 years, which our current president is hitting this March anyway.

Whole thing was kind of insane. Apparently the ringleader of the coup attempt was whipping the other two up in a frenzy, and one of them told our president at one of our events, "You'll have to either fire us, or we'll fire you." So yeah. I guess it was the former, then.

Seriously though- I get having gripes about a president, but it doesn't accomplish anything to have them leave 4 months early. It's just stupidity to install a new president during our off-season when we're refreshing the exhibits and adding new ones while doing building maintenance.

The crazy thing to remember through all of this is that we're an all-volunteer organization. This is supposed to be fun. I feel pretty pissed that those (former) board members basically tried to ruin the end of this season and the end of term for this current president.

So today i got my first big complaint ever (were talking like 5 years of volunteer service) from someone who wanted to know where a specific gallery is. Now i can tell you each gallery is, where you can find the gift shop, cafe, bathrooms, i can even tell you where exactly to find our more prominent works of art, but if you ask me where specific named galleries are located, i can't help you unless i look it up.

Well today a man came in asking for a specific gallery and was just appalled that the volunteer on duty (me) couldn't answer his question without asking more questions and looking it up on my computer.

Sorry i'm not a human computer random grumpy dude but we have well over 100 separate galleries in this 716,000 square foot museum.

One of my first questions in my summer job at this museum. A very well spoken lady came up to me and told me of her disgust at an ugly extension to a house that was across the road.

I explained that unfortunatley the museum wasn't able to do anything as it wasn't on our land and it was already built.

This lady was very insistant. How could we let it happen? Could we not object?

At this point I explained she could go on the local councils' website and look up the address as all plans and objections would be on there. I didn't dare tell her permission would've been granted already and she would be wasting her breath.

She was very pleased with my suggestion, but it makes me wonder if the poor people at the local council will now have a new busybody