[NSFL]

Man, I'm reading some of the stories here and they're all so different and yet similar. Super interesting snapshot into some professions I was curious about or have never even thought about.

For me personally, I both love and hate my job. I'm a curator at a sports museum. Some of you may know which museum that is.

I had always wanted to be a teacher as a kid, but realized my second year in university I would kill myself in the classroom. I dropped the teaching dream at that point and kinda muddled through finishing my history degree and considering what I could do with it. After that, I started volunteering at a museum and found a love for museum work. Like the behind the scenes stuff working in collections and curating exhibits. I think it's been the best decision for me as I get to teach, but in a vastly different setting. When I do a behind the scenes tour such as DO YYC, or I walk through the galleries randomly holding an artefact and talking to people about it, I absolutely love my job. There are other times too, when you curate an exhibit and on opening night you stand in that exhibit and people come up to you and tell you how much it means to them to see their story shared, or how this exhibit means so much to them it is just incomparable. I literally work to inspire other people and it's immensely inspiring. And I am myself surrounded by inspiring stories and I just can't help but be... inspired.

But then there are other times. As I work in not for profit you get stretched so thin and sometimes when you finish an exhibit and they're not happy, it's just such a downer. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. I also work my butt off often times with other people not having a clue what goes into curating and installing an exhibit. A lot of times, people just think all you do is give tours and they have no idea the work it takes literally to get artefacts, track artefacts, do the research, write the text, prepare mounts, and do the the install. It can be brutally thankless to work behind the scenes. Even my own coworkers don't have much of an idea of how the curatorial department works and just expects things to be done. There was an exhibit we curated, produced, and installed within 3 months. It normally takes 6+ months for an exhibit of that size to go up but we literally pulled it out of our butt holes. And it was just expected that it would be done with little to no notice.

In the grand scheme of things though, I don't want my work to be my legacy. I enjoy what I do. I work hard when I'm there and if I need to, I work late. But it's the stuff I do outside of work that I want to be my legacy. I volunteer as a youth leader in my off time and it is immensely fulfilling. That is what I want my legacy to be. That I made a difference in their lives. Museums close down, exhibits get changed out, curatorial procedures change. But having a teenager remember you as having made a difference in their life is the legacy I strive for. I think sometimes your job is just the thing you do to pay the bills so you can work on your legacy elsewhere.