facilitator

shift leader

senior custodian

fabricator

crew member

Science Museum of Minnesota

I was so excited to be hired here, but I quickly found out that it's really not a great work environment, particularly if you are a lower-level employee. There are way too many managers/supervisors/etc. who are so removed from the actual WORK of the place with not enough to do, so they take up a lot of time with pointless meetings and busywork. FOH is generally ignored by BOH, but they constantly claim to be visitor-focused (without getting input or perspectives from people who actually interact with the visitor). Senior-level employee culture is gross - they watch out for their own, and pretend that lower-level employees either don't exist or don't have anything important to add. Constantly talking with little/no action - you have to have several meetings and get multiple people to approve tiny projects just to get something done, lest you accidentally do someone else's job (which makes people SO angry). If you have a solution to an issue, no matter how simple, you might as well keep it to yourself, because it will not be implemented (even if a manager or director says it's a good idea). 
Claim to be competitive in pay with the current market, but they are obviously not. There is no real opportunity for significant advancement without a very specific graduate degree (though a former VP often bragged about never going to college, so back to the gross senior-level culture). Problems and concerns are ignored. Very few people seem happy here, and it shows in their work; there's simply no joy.

I was helping my current employer at the time build a report to gain federal funds.  I needed to learn to use a program called dBase.  I knew the Science Museum of Minnesota was offering a class, and took the training I needed.

My trainer for that class moved on, and the manager of Education Center, based on previously seeing me giving a demonstration as a volunteer, offered me the job of contract instructor. 12 years, many software/hardware products, hundreds of classes I created and taught thousands of students. I worked one on one and delivered content to hundreds of people in an audience.  I learned to tailor instruction to specific groups, and keep diverse groups focused and able to learn everything I taught.

This job let me use computers from the original PC through every iteration of Intel processors.  I created Apple Talk networks for Apple IIs and Macs. I set up our first Novell network to improve efficient setup of classrooms for software changes. As new innovations came along, I helped to create the course ware needed to train our customers.

 In short, the 12 years at the Science Museum of MN, was my school and laboratory to become the trainer/problem solver I am today.  This was a great place with outstanding people that nurtured my desire to learn and share.

I was the grounds supervisor and was not given the resources to do the job properly.  In the winter you are told there will be help from the custodians and there is not. Besides most of the custodians are challenged. Upper management really don’t care. They have been having trouble keeping this position filled for several years now. I have been in the turf industry for 25 years and have never had such a sour tast for a company like I do for this one. Totally a pain. This place is not set up properly to do grounds maintenance. The equipment is junk and needs replacement. And you can’t even fix things yourself you need to wait on an engineer to fix it and that could take weeks to get a piece of equipment back. The engineers are the only union left in the building and they take their time completing tasks. Very frustrating

SMM is a good place to work, especially if you get excited and like talking to people about science. 
The management is present and acknowledges employees when they do well. If an employee has a change in their schedule and can no longer work a certain day, it's figured out without a fuss. 
The co-workers are pleasant people to work with, for the most part.
SMM is a non-profit, so don't be surprised by a relatively low wage. Also, things tend to take a while to change. 
It's very rarely a stressful job. 
You do have to be willing to enforce rules with visitors (no food in the exhibit area, don't touch the dinosaurs, etc).
SMM is very PC conscious. The goal of the Science Museum is to teach as many people about science as possible (simply stated), and SMM works hard to ensure that every visitor feels respected and welcome.

A typical day at my current job is pretty laid back. Most days I'm offsite at different schools in St. Paul, when I am at the museum its always a warm, enjoyable environment. All my co-workers and colleagues are very helpful and friendly. Management has more or a "leader" feel than a "I'm your boss" type of feel. The hardest part of my job is working with the kids sometimes its hard to establish boundaries, especially when the kids get attached. I've learned a lot from working at the museum, it was my first job out of high school.They taught me to write my resume, classroom management, they're always willing to send you to different kinds of training and workshops which is always paid for.

Not great. No room for advancement. It's a suck up culture and everyone only cares about their own careers.  Not a well run organization at all. 

They consistently make terrible business decisions and treat their part-time workers and volunteers like second class citizens.  The physical building is impressive but because they are poorly managed, it is falling apart.  Just look up roof issues and read for yourself how they handled that.

The only bonus was the paid time off but they cut that as well, which will tell you something about their money problems and how they are managed.  I would recommend staying away.

Take care of operations before opening the Museum. I’ve learned quite a few skills involving security and custodial to help my future endeavors. The custodial management wasn’t what it should’ve been, the manager had no knowledge of the work we did and constantly would change the work load by adding areas and/or  time consuming specs to our work load. The hardest part of the job would be carpet extraction, because it was hard on the back and it was hot in most cases to the point you were drenched in sweat.

I'm not sure what It's like now but a major problem was how compartmentalized every department was from each other.  It was so difficult to get clear information sometimes because one department would be making things difficult for the others. I never really felt secure in my job and I felt like the whole staff could be let go at any moment which when the pandemic hit that's exactly what they did. Just felt like a cog in the machine and I was never really able to get any further than that. 

I definitely enjoyed my experience as an employee there. The staff is great and it feels like a big family. There is not as much room for growth depending on what department you are in but the team does try their best to help you develop the skills you need to further advance in the organization. The work culture is very family oriented and big on leadership development. The most enjoyable part of my job was teaching students and developing strong relationships.

I work in the gift shop and for every area its a different type of work environment. The gift shop was most of the time relaxed and slow-paced however there are definitely times where we have rushes or crowds come in for 30 minutes to an hour. My manager is very nice and flexible with the schedule and respectful towards the employs.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Facilitator 3 salaries reported	$17.12 per hour
Shift leader 1 salary reported	$20.50 per hour
Senior custodian 1 salary reported	$17.66 per hour
Fabricator 3 salaries reported	$32.67 per hour
Crew member 2 salaries reported	$16.00 per hour

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