Anyone work in a museum

[Twims]

Hi,

Just seen a position advertised working in our local museum, and just wondered if anyone had any experience working in a museum and could tell me a little more about it.

Thanks

I work in a museum. What's the job?

Museum assistant does that stand for dogsbody

Ah, the backbone of the museum!

Seriously, the MAs are crucial. I don't know how big the museum is, I work for one of the big London museums and the MAs are fab. They do all manner of things including;

Manning the front doors/bag search etc.
Being in the galleries which can involve answering visitor questions, keeping the peace, admitting people in the case of timed exhibitions.
We have a team down on the schools' entrance whose sole job is to deal with school groups. They are saints (not the schoolkids!).
More internal stuff such as delivering and collecting post from offices, helping out with operational stuff like setting up chairs/desks etc in conference rooms.
I think if they are on the early shift they do a certain amount of basic cleaning but not too much. But like I said, this is one of the big museums so I don't know how it would be in a smaller one, which I'm assuming 'local' is.

There's loads of other stuff which I've forgotten though.

We love our MAs, we buy them Quality Street at Christmas!

Is it a council run place? If it is, they will have all the information on their website and they will probably be very precice in their job description. If you like the museum, go for it!

I always wanted to work at the one I'm in now and I went for an MA post before I got my job. They asked me how I would relieve the boredom of being in a gallery for two hours at a time. I grinned and said I would stand and look at the exhibits. I didn't get it...

Yes council run - doesn't say which museum it is but there are 4 muesuems in town 1 large museum, history of the town etc, 1 national history literally 1 room with some stuffed exhibits, 1 life in the times museum - which is an old house, and a clock museum.