A day in the life of a museum Manager
Do you ever wonder what your Manager does all day? When I was starting my career in museums working the front-line with the public, fresh out of grad school, I admit that I would often wonder what Management did with their day. I remember seeing them pop in and out of interactions with employees or guests and then return to the “back office” vortex where they sat comfortably out of sight. Was that what they were doing? Were they sitting, relaxing, and doing minimal work? We stood on the hard floor all day, interacting with visitors, or processing tickets, or starting the film every 20 minutes, and where were they? It’s hard not to get envious of their freedom when you are in an entry-level position that has either a rotation schedule or fixed routine.
I’m sure that now I’m a Manager there are members on my team, and other front-line staff who probably aren’t really sure what I’m doing either. I actually know this for a fact, because we recently sent a survey to our front-line staff (including those I do and do not directly supervise) and 70% said they do not have a ‘general understanding’ of the ongoing work conducted by their department Managers. Well, that’s not great.
Though not based on a single day, I will try to capture what a “typical” day looks like in my world using all true and recent events. Nothing too outside the norm like alligators on the property, raccoons in the garbage cans, an injured visitor, a fire alarm going off, a leaking roof in Admissions, naked models in the gardens, or even an angry/abusive visitor… though really, I could have, because those all really and truly have happened, and are somewhat normal in my world. I also didn’t include the many projects like building new revenue streams, or committees such as DEAI and Visitor Services, the hours of personnel work, and check-ins with staff, or any programs and late nights. So just a cut and dry typical day.
The goal: I hope that the take-away from reading about my typical day is all the quick decisions, interruptions, and delicate navigating that is done by your Manager. And maybe you’ll see: we don’t just sit and relax in the vortex all day.
So here it is. To clear things up, here is a day in the life of a Visitor Services Manager- during this pandemic (let’s add that little twist of unpredictability in there, because why not):
8:15 a.m. I bike to work. My solution to avoiding public transportation during the pandemic was re-learning how to ride a bike. “It’s just like riding a bike” is not an entirely accurate idiom for “easy”, because, did you know there are gears on adult bikes? At 35 years old, I had to have a Security Officer explain how gears work after I struggled on the bike the first week. He actually got in a golf cart and rode next to me in the parking lot after hours to tell me which gear I should be shifting into. It was not embarrassing at all.
Anyway, despite listening to true crime, my ride to work has quickly become one of the most relaxing part of my days. Also, despite being honked at by crazy Miami drivers that don’t like to share the road, or getting flipped off by said driver. And despite the inevitable call-off texts that I usually get while on the road that sometimes nag at me so much I need to pull over to look. I am grateful when the text is simply a “Not feeling well this morning” rather than a lengthy description of their stomach bug. Despite all that, the ride into work is still relatively relaxing.
8:34 a.m. I arrive at work. As I’m taking off my bike helmet, sweating an inappropriate amount because it’s Miami in August, I’m often met by a colleague who walks up to me, apparently unaware of the fact that I’ve been on the property for two seconds and I’m sweating through my yoga pants outside, just feet outside the staff entrance door.
They lead me into a conversation about an email that they sent me the day before. Since I’m off on Mondays and work a Tuesday through Saturday schedule (always have) I remind them of this (for probably the 8th time) and they then proceed into a summary of said email. Guess I don’t need to read it anymore. After the email conversation they say “oh and one more thing” to start two more topics of conversation as I’m slowly walking backwards to try to leave (Still holding my bike in my hands. Still in my sweaty yoga pants.)
8:48 a.m. I’m stopped twice on my way up to my office by other staff with questions or stories that include incidents from the previous days with visitors. I finally make it to my office, three floors up, out of breath (stairs), peel off my sweaty clothes and change into something dryer and more work appropriate. I send out the morning rotation schedule, pick up the radios that were charging overnight, check the volunteer schedule, get momentarily distracted by an angry visitor email, pull myself away and run downstairs.
9:00 a.m. I lead the morning meeting with our front-line staff. Our front-line team is now a mix of the Admissions team I supervised prior to the pandemic, our Museum Educators, and our Community Program Facilitators. They are all in a new hybrid position of front-line operations which is primarily customer service, since we are unable to plan programs or give public tours right now due to the county regulations. Some have taken this shift better than others, and there is understandably high tension over health concerns involved in working in a high traffic public-facing position. I’m met in the morning meeting with mixed emotions- some of them smile back, and some have never smiled at me ever before. I try to start the meeting with an ice breaker. Something light and fun, again received with mixed reviews. I ask what is their favorite kind of cheese and luckily today my question garners an animated response (from most). After that I provide the expectations of the day and then release them into the wild.
9:30 a.m. We open to the public. I will head over to Security’s office to check in and give some face time. I learned early in my role as Visitor Services Manager that it was important to have good relationships with the Security team. They work the front-line just like us, and we should be in tandem with each other. After the time I was punched by an elderly woman who was upset over our service animal policy, we created a policy that I must have an officer present with me whenever I’m called into an escalated situation. By the time I was called in, she was already pretty agitated. I don’t even think she heard me as I tried to explain the difference between an emotional support animal and a service animal and what our policy allows. Actually while I was starting to say I would make an exception for her so long as the animal wasn’t aggressive, she clocked me. It took me by surprise more than anything else, but after that and several others like it, we decided that I shouldn’t go into these situations alone. Now I wear that story like a badge of courage. When you work with the public you quickly start stacking up the crazy and unusual stories. If only working in VS was like girl scouts and we really did collect badges for our tales, I would have a covered sash.
10:00 a.m. By now, I start to make my way back to my office, and for the first time since arriving, I can sit down. I open my email and go back to the one with the visitor complaint. They are upset that we asked them 5 times (they admit to that in the email) to keep their mask on and were asked to leave. The email even includes a selfie of the visitor with one of our security officers behind them escorting them out. The intent of the picture was to show the identity of the security officer so he could be reprimanded- but what it shows me is that the visitor is mask-less. Even in their own picture. So, I spend a fair amount of time writing an understanding, yet unwavering response. I sandwich the policy-defending part inside an apology and best wishes. I write countless emails like this and yet they still can be pretty time consuming. In some cases, I have to draft them several times to make sure I hit the right notes of customer service while not bending the expectations of the museum.
10:30 a.m. My first meeting of the day (now all held virtually) is with a contact from another local organization. I reached out to them to see if we could compare notes about reopening. The call doesn’t go quite as I thought it would. As I express our challenges with masks, visitation being at 25% and visitors not reading signs- the colleague follows up by saying her organization has not had any issues with masks, their visitation is higher than this time last year, and their signs seem to be doing the trick. I now regret this call. I am happy to hear of another organization’s successes. But we’re doing all the same things that they’re doing, and somehow met with more challenges. Which is often the case with a historic house museum. We don’t fit exactly into a museum category (like a white walled art gallery/modern building) and we’re not a park, despite many visitors thinking that. The call was cut short as the radio chatter began to increase and I’m needed on the floor.
11:30 a.m. It started raining. Every visitor on the property started piling into the Main House because it is the only covered area on the property. Unfortunately, we still have a capacity limit that enables us to enforce social distancing and we are quickly nearing that number. Front-line staff panics and calls me multiple times on the radio from each of their posts, asking for help or clarity on procedure. Meanwhile I’m calling Admissions to make sure they ask people to stay in their vehicle until the rain stops. I have to prioritize who to get to first, so I make my way to the front door to support the associate there as they may have to start turning angry visitors away and into the rain. My cell phone rings and it’s one of the front-line staff. I answer and find out that they have locked themselves out of the Admissions booth and are unable to get back inside. The primary key is in the Security office, but I have a backup key on my lanyard around my neck, so I run as fast as I can to the booth, in the pouring rain, arrive and open the booth to a grateful employee. A medium sized group of wet and angry visitors has now formed (I mean, I’m no Usain Bolt) I assist in letting them know we have limited covered spaces and we recommend they wait it out in their vehicles. This is not so much a quick and easy conversation as they (understandably) are annoyed, but also want to get out of the rain. When they start to disperse back to the parking lot I run back to the house. Drenched. So… for anyone keeping track, and since my yoga pants this morning, I stayed dry for little more than 2 hours.
I will spend the next two and a half hours running from the front door to the Security office, to each post with front line staff inside the house, constantly answering radio calls and supporting staff. All the while drenched and freezing in the powerfully air-conditioned house.
2:30 p.m. As it finally stops raining and the sun starts to come out again, I make my way back to my office. I quickly run back down the 3 flights of stairs to heat up my food in the only microwave in the house, and I run back up in time for my next virtual meeting at 2:30 (completely out of breath, and clothes still wet). I “forget” to put my camera on and I munch over my keyboard, while reading emails and trying to catch up, and also attempting to give an adequate amount of participation in the meeting. During the meeting I get a phone call from Admissions letting me know that the internet is slow and they’re struggling to process tickets. I run through the qualifying questions to determine if it’s the internet or our ticketing system, a rain-related outage, slow or completely down, etc. I let them know I’ll look into it on my end and then call them back. I hear my name on the Teams channel and I chime in with a response, still half listening (maybe less than half-listening) and I start anxiously navigating my way through the internet/ticketing system issue. It does appear to be down. Crap. As I call Admissions and await their answer, I type into the Teams chat “Admissions emergency, got to go” and I sign off. Lunch half eaten and pushed to the side. I spend the next 20 minutes running through backup options with the Admissions person, calling our POS emergency contact line, check back in with Admissions and learn it’s now coming back online. After all is said and done we were only offline for about 25 minutes. Could’ve been much worse. I eat a few more bites of my now-cold lunch before giving up on it.
3:15 p.m. With Admissions back up and running, I now have time to focus on emails. I have 209 unread emails. Some of those are quite old, but I probably do average about 50 per day so by the time I catch up and return to work (on a Tuesday, remember) everyone else is a day ahead of me into their week, so I’m always playing catch-up. I will spend the next hour answering emails, my own and from the Information email inbox. About a third of the emails are asking if they can take portrait photography on the property. The answer, though clearly stated on our website, is no. We have not been able to allow photography permits in over a month. Another third of the emails are asking for a date transfer or refund, though also stated on the website prior to purchase and in the confirmation that we don’t offer refunds. The last few emails are from visitors with inquiries or complaints. In the middle of responding to emails, I get a radio call about the vending machine being out of order and asked to make a sign. I make the sign, run back down the 3 flights of stairs and back up again (got my steps in for the day).
4:15 p.m. By now I feel that I’ve responded to the most pressing emails, so I can start to work on staffing schedules for the next month. I also need to do time cards so that everyone can get paid, and I will work on writing a long overdue draft of an SOP for processing discounts in our ticketing system. At 5:00 p.m. the front-line staff closes up the house and starts to clock out. Most days I’m able to get down there before they leave and check-in about how the day went. Today had me away from my desk so long due to the rain, that I have too much to do. One of my staff members always calls me from downstairs and says goodbye. I appreciate that.
5:45 p.m. Though I’m supposed to leave at 5:00, it rarely happens. I usually am just starting to get into a groove with desk work as the day is slowing down with visitors. Feeling like I’m at a good stopping point, I eventually close up my computer and change out of my semi-dry work clothes and back into my yoga pants for the ride home. I make my way downstairs and stop in the Security office to say goodbye. That inevitably leads into a conversation about how the staff handled the rain earlier today. I assure them that I took notes and set up a meeting with other colleagues to try to determine a backup plan for rain coverage for the next time. We talk about how my bike is doing, and they ask if I need air in my tires. They’re the best.
6:15 p.m. I bike home. It’s hot and muggy. I get honked at at least once. I ignore it. I listen to the second half of my podcast and leave behind the ciaos.
(Well, as much as I can… actually I’ll probably dream about one of those visitor complaints or the remaining unread emails. But… they will still be there tomorrow, along with the next badge for my imaginary customer service girl-scout sash.)
Total floor time: 3.5 hours
Total vortex time: 6.5 hours
