4 thoughts on “Hirshhorn Ends Docent Program, Telling Volunteers that They are No Longer Needed”
Its ridiculous that they are taking away the volunteer positions. Its hard to find people who actually have a passion for their job, they know everything inside and out. In the end the museum just loses people from coming in. You have to make mistakes to learn
Wow, how cruel and insensitive of them! I would much rather get a tour from someone that has the long years of knowledge because you know they truly know the history and what they are talking about. Why not put the keep the docents and have the younger interns work besides the older docents as a learning experience? If they felt understaffed then why not do the most respectable and decent thing and hire someone that can take on and continue the program?
Looks like their poor decision led them to lose in the end…as they lost attendance and had some of the younger interns drop out….they should have shown more appreciation towards the docents that were so committed to their volunteer work. It’s hard to find good volunteers these days.
Donna is correct. Taking away these docents from their volunteer positions they are so passionate about is heartbreaking, especially without a proper thank you. Treating them with such low respect will hurt the museums business, and just because you bring in new internships doesn’t mean they had to completely let go of their loyal volunteers. I am sure they could have come up with a better solution, even if it was just cutting back on the responsibilities. This was the volunteers life, passion, and joy of their day to go do – and now that was taken away.
The Docents are valuable non paid team members and Hirshhorn really messed up by not treating them as such. The bad press that this has caused will be hard to clean up. These docents have told a lot of people about how they love their volunteer work all of these years at the museum but now they will bad mouth the museum 10 times worse for what you have just done to them. Hurt feelings are hard to fix.
Its ridiculous that they are taking away the volunteer positions. Its hard to find people who actually have a passion for their job, they know everything inside and out. In the end the museum just loses people from coming in. You have to make mistakes to learn
Wow, how cruel and insensitive of them! I would much rather get a tour from someone that has the long years of knowledge because you know they truly know the history and what they are talking about. Why not put the keep the docents and have the younger interns work besides the older docents as a learning experience? If they felt understaffed then why not do the most respectable and decent thing and hire someone that can take on and continue the program?
Looks like their poor decision led them to lose in the end…as they lost attendance and had some of the younger interns drop out….they should have shown more appreciation towards the docents that were so committed to their volunteer work. It’s hard to find good volunteers these days.
Donna is correct. Taking away these docents from their volunteer positions they are so passionate about is heartbreaking, especially without a proper thank you. Treating them with such low respect will hurt the museums business, and just because you bring in new internships doesn’t mean they had to completely let go of their loyal volunteers. I am sure they could have come up with a better solution, even if it was just cutting back on the responsibilities. This was the volunteers life, passion, and joy of their day to go do – and now that was taken away.
The Docents are valuable non paid team members and Hirshhorn really messed up by not treating them as such. The bad press that this has caused will be hard to clean up. These docents have told a lot of people about how they love their volunteer work all of these years at the museum but now they will bad mouth the museum 10 times worse for what you have just done to them. Hurt feelings are hard to fix.