The Day I Was Offered My Dream Job! Amanda Ward, Education and Engagement Coordinator, Palmetto Historical Park
I am so excited to be writing to you all as an SEMC EMP but also as a newly employed member of the museum community! With so many job listings popping up on the SEMC Job Board over the past few months, I was so excited when I was offered one of those coveted full-time museum jobs. I have never been more excited to talk about my job or even just share my job title, Education & Engagement Coordinator at the Palmetto Historical Park (in case you were wondering!). I also know I am not alone in this excitement over these new opportunities. The Palmetto Historical Park is one of five locations in the Historical Resources Department under the Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller and since the shut down in March of 2020, the historical resources department has recently filled 6 of the open positions with eager museum professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic was especially hard on the job searching museum community and many organizations had hiring freezes, layoffs and shut downs. When COVID-19 hit and the world shut down, I was in the last semester of my master’s program and working part-time as a visitor services associate at a local museum. In fact, the day before the world shut down, I submitted my final draft of my master’s thesis for Amanda Ward, Coquina Beach, Manatee County, Florida.
publication and was headed for my last college spring break. Graduating during the pandemic was less than ideal (oh who am I kidding, I was devastated), but what was even more frustrating was trying to find a job while museums were closed. Application, after application; ZOOM interview, after ZOOM interview; hiring freeze automatic response email, after hiring freeze automatic response email — I was exhausted! I was frustrated, I was bitter, and I was even mad at myself. So I did what every other resourceful, millennial job hunter does during a pandemic.… I took the first full-time job I was offered. Pizza delivery shift leader was not exactly the job I envisioned upon graduating with a master’s degree in applied anthropology, but it was a full-time job with benefits and I was feeling pretty desperate. The next day I was offered another full-time job, still not in my degree field, but a little closer and anything had to be better than food service. I accepted a position working at a nonprofit feline-only animal shelter. I was feeling pretty good about this. I was doing some things that I wanted to do in a museum but using cats as my subject instead of history and artifacts — educational programming, social media marketing, donor engagement, community outreach — and I got to make a lot of cat videos 47
