i worked at the carnegie science center up until summer of last year. during my time there our pay was raised from a whopping $9/hr to $10/hr (with no chance for raises other than by promotion). I was informed that this was the first our wages had been raised in almost 2 decades. This was easily the worst job i had ever worked. horribly understaffed and minimal training yet they expect you to come to work everyday in an eager mood ready to babysit 3-8yr olds while their parents yell at you and sit on their phones. On top of it they ask you to constantly lie to guests about the state of the museum. Regularly we were told to tell people that exhibits were closed due to covid and other nonsense but the real reason is understaffing due to poor pay. My department was under 50% staffed during my entire employment and their only solution was to blame covid and shut down exhibits (all while not properly informing guests or reducing ticket prices, leaving us, the floor staff, to deal with the angry customers). The supervisors in my department regularly had to skip lunch to account for the lack of staff. The last straw for me was when they sent an annual survey to fill out as a job review. Every single question was about “how could i do more for the company?” and “how am i going to work on improving to be a better employee?”. Not a single time did they ask what more they could do for me to improve my living conditions/work environment. I don’t know how a company could be so tone deaf to ask more and more of their workers while paying you $10/hr (did i mention you need a high school diploma and preferably a science degree to apply). They believe that if they keep telling their employees that “we are a big family and we care about you! everyone matters equally!” that they will believe it. Unfortunately a handful of overworked/exploited workers do believe it and its these sad people that keep carnegie museums from changing. I truly hope that things have gotten better in the year that i have been away from there but to be honest.. i highly doubt it. Truly a toxic work environment built around doing anything and everything to manipulate and exploit their employees. Its a shame that a place that used to bring me so much joy as a child is now ruined for me forever.

EDIT: How could I forget to mention the one of the worst parts? Enforcing any sort of rules with the customer (especially mask wearing) was a traumatic experience. Constantly we had higher ups breathing down our necks that we needed to enforce these rules and if customers got angry/combative they promised they would have security ask them to leave. I cannot tell you how many times i was threatened with physical violence or harassed (quite literally followed around the museum) by angry customers. Truly, you wouldnt believe how irate mask wearing makes people. Despite the promise, not a single time did security or the museum try to protect me. Do you know how embarrassing it is to tell customers that if they cannot comply with museum rules they will be escorted out (again they forced us to say this to customers), then have them laugh in your face when security allows them to stay? They would always say “well we dont wanna escalate the situation”. WHAT DO YOU MEAN? I AM ALREADY BEING THREATENED. DO I NEED TO WAIT TO BE PUNCHED IN THE FACE FOR YOU PEOPLE TO CARE? truly a shitshow.

I currently work for the Science Center and I’ll be honest I do really love what I do but I can understand what the other poster said — I work in a slightly different department. The pay is low and they know they can get away with it because we all love inspiring people with science. Since the union’s come in we’ve got pretty significant pay increases (relatively speaking) and they’ve been fighting for things beyond pay like bereavement time for part-timers. I appreciate the union

It's a long process and we are being pushed back against in incredible and unreasonable ways. I am optimistic that this will make our workplace better especially for part time and front line staff, but it is a long process and I know folks are getting frustrated. Mostly I think that a lot of people deeply misunderstood or downplayed this process and how long, uncomfortable, and upsetting it would be. Setting up a new union is not at all like walking into a position with an established union. This is a plant a tree whose shade you may never sit in situation for a lot of our staff but when you're looking at possibly making the future better for employees of a place that has taken advantage for so long it feels very worth fighting.