I recently took a position as a tour guide at history museum. It pays lousy but I needed a job quickly and the position comes with benefits. I enjoy the work and my managers seem very happy with me, but I’ll probably have to quit the job eventually because it just pays too little to cover my living expenses.
The irony of my situation is this: I give kick-ass tours and visitors are throwing money at me all day long in the form of tips. I refuse them all, telling the patrons it’s against museum policy to accept them. If I took the tips I could probably make ends meet and stay on board.
This got me wondering about tipping policies at other museums (and not just history museums). I have no idea what those policies are and how strictly they are enforced. I’d love to hear from tipping and non-tipping museum patrons, and museum employees (and former employees) about how this situation is handled.
I worked at a small museum as a summer job when I was in university. There was no official policy, because there was no policy on anything. (The man who ran it was a 78-year-old former priest/teacher, not a museum professional at all.) I didn’t give many tours because I worked the front desk, but only one person ever offered to tip me, and I just wanted to tell the story because it’s funny.
It was free day, one Sunday when all museums in the province had free admission. One man who visited signed the guest register Name, avocat (lawyer). At the end of his visit, he asked the proprietor about making donations, and my boss started telling him about tax deductions and all that. (And this place seriously needed donations - I was working there because they qualified for the “free student worker supplied by the government, who unfortunately speaks only crappy French” program.) So M. Avocat pulls out a big wad of bills. He looks through them. Then he puts them back in his wallet and pulls out a change purse. He gave me something like $1.75 or something - admission would have been $4 on a normal day. He told me it was for me. Thanks, dude. I put it in the drawer.
OK, I’ll take the plunge. Whether I’m motivated to tip or not would depend largely on whether I felt like I’d already paid for the tour.
Museum charges admission, tour is an intrinsic part of the visit (e.g., all or a substantial part of the museum is not accessible to unescorted guests): no tip.
Museum charges admission, tour is available for an additional fee: no tip.
Museum does not charge admission, tour is available for a fee: no tip.
Museum charges admission, tour is optional: tip.
Museum does not charge admission, tour is free: tip and/or donation.
Basically, I don’t like paying twice. I will tip waiters and hair stylists because it’s such an entrenched practice, they depend on it, and I really don’t want to piss those people off.
ETA: To be less hypothetical, I avoid museum tour guides when I can as I prefer (a) enjoying exhibits at my own pace and (b) not tipping. Sorry.
I think you’d better move on. I think museums are somewhat elitist; they don’t want to appear to be “begging” – they are educational and shouldn’t have to resort to asking for funding from its visitors. I was a docent volunteer at D. C.'s Natural History museum – I didn’t get paid at all. None of the visitors ever offered me money. Admission to all D. C.'s museums is free, so I don’t think it would have occurred to anyone to offer me a tip. I think most people associate tips with day-to-day services – waiters especially, since most people know that wait staff don’t get paid diddly and depend on tips. At least you can put your experience with the museum on your resume.