The worst job in the whole arts world
mainArts Council England has just advertised a vacancy:
Complaints Manager
Salary: £32,615 per annum, plus excellent benefits
Contract: Permanent, working 35 hours per week
Location: Any office outside London
You will be contractually based at one of the Arts Council’s regional offices in Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham, Cambridge, Brighton or Bristol. However, all our offices are closed at the moment for the duration of the emergency pandemic measures and all staff are currently supported to work from home while these continue. You will have the option to work your contracted hours on a flexible basis.
sounds like a job for John Boreslap if you ask me….. hahaha!
No, the salary is too low and I’m not used working in the countryside.
Is this a joke? No work due to covid, musicians and the Arts in general are non existent, yet a job from the ACE being advertised for £36k? Are these people totally unaware of the state of Arts in the UK? Shocking. Disgusting. Pen pushers…They clearly haven’t a clue.
Seems like a good job to me.
You work from home, when calls come in you put the telephone on mute while you file your nails, watch the telly, and take tea breaks as needed.
When the complainer is done talking, you tell them that “you’ll look into the matter and give it your best effort to resolve it but due to Covid, things are running a bit slower than normal.”
Then you go back to more important matters such as paying your bills, preparing dinner, and enjoying a pint.
Nice, paying better than some “professional” orchestras. Maybe it’s time to create some Complaints Symhpony Orchestras.
Some of these orchestras already exist, under disguise names.
True story, John.
Once I had an orchestral rehearsel where the players had nothing to complain, and afterwards they complained about that.
I seem to recall a “complaints choir” in Finland that had a Youtube video go viral some years back.
Exactly what does a complaints manager do and is this type of position common elsewhere in Europe?
No, it is unique for the UK and for the Netherlands, for different reasons. Complaints about the Arts Council focus on the low payments; in Holland the National Fund against the Performing Arts has a special wing with some 50 staff dealing with the daily avalanche of complaints about the fraudulant system where receiving parties of state money decide about the competition, the lack of competence of selection comitees and office processes including the staff at the Complaints Department, etc. etc. In Germany however, there is never any complaint whatsoever due to the nature of the subsidy systems and the character of the people. In Andorra and San Marino the local shepherd is being paid a generous state salary for his whole life. In Monaco, there are no government subsidies for the arts since people pay for it themselves. In France however, – no, that would be cruel.
Still, not exactly retrieving lobsters is it?
“You will have the option to work your contracted hours on a flexible basis.”
This either means there is more than one such postion or those wishing to complain will have to fit in with the flexibility of the job holder “Please hold the line. Your call is important to us but at the present time not so important that we can actually take your call” And who would have guessed that ACE has 8 regional outposts and perhaps more pertinently what they actually do.
35 hours per week x50 (allowing for 2 weeks time off) = 1,750
£32,615 per year ÷ 1,750 hours = £18.64 per hour, plus “excellent benefits,” whatever that means in a country with national health care (in the US we basically think of “benefits” as meaning health care coverage, and possibly some kind of retirement fund contribution). Not terrible, if you have the right temperament for it.
And don’t forget job security! Considering the number and types of things that people write in to complain about (in my small orchestra we’ve had complaints about the Rite of Spring and probably many other pieces, the musicians’ dress not matching perfectly, the musicians wearing “different shades of black,” the musicians not smiling while they play… plus the things people complain about here regarding, well, everything)… this is a job that will never be unnecessary — even if the intention is never to do anything about complaints, a person could stay busy 7 hours a day just typing “thank you for your input. We’ll look into it.”
(And of course there could be legitimate complaints sometimes too: refunds promised that don’t come through, rude treatment by an usher, etc.)
35 hours per week x50 (allowing for 2 weeks time off) = 1,750
£32,615 per year ÷ 1,750 hours = £18.64 per hour, plus “excellent benefits,” whatever that means in a country with national health care (in the US we basically think of “benefits” as meaning health care coverage, and possibly some kind of retirement fund contribution). Not terrible, if you have the right temperament for it.
And don’t forget job security! Considering the number and types of things that people write in to complain about (in my small orchestra we’ve had complaints about the Rite of Spring and probably many other pieces, the musicians’ dress not matching perfectly, the musicians wearing “different shades of black,” the musicians not smiling while they play… plus the things people complain about here regarding, well, everything)… this is a job that will never be unnecessary — even if the intention is never to do anything about complaints, a person could stay busy 7 hours a day just typing “thank you for your input. We’ll look into it.”
(And of course there could be legitimate complaints sometimes too: refunds promised that don’t come through, rude treatment by an usher, etc.)
Benefits in the UK would include paid holiday time, which is generous by US standards, in some places transportation allowances, in some places lunch allowances, in some places some accommodation allowances, and possibly some medical expenses not included in the general universal health care schemes. They might include more sick leave, maternity/paternity leave and compassionate leave than the state mandates.
These are just some of the benefits friends of mine enjoy in their work in the UK.
In the U.K. 4 weeks holiday pay is standard.
I don’t quite understand why this showed up twice — I submitted it once and it was rejected as spam, so I copied/ refreshed/ pasted and submitted again, and it was accepted. Oh well.
Please add “we are committed to maintaining the highest standards of customer service “ and something including the word “passionate” should be in there too.
Pretty pathetic salary, for a job whose intrinsic nature is to deal with the unhappy.
As to why there are so many regional offices: surely that is a GOOD thing? Aren’t people always complaining about things being so London-centric? When life is normal, these widespread offices give much more local foci for arts organisations seeking grants, advice, whatever else they do (and complaining). I would imagine that regional officers fight their corner more effectively that some London bureaucrat trying to dole out the dosh with a regional percentage would.
I wonder how many readers notice that this salary is nearly £10,000 more than what a salaried orchestral musician in the UK might make.
Must live outside London and have voted Leave, to demonstrate cognitive diversity?
90% of the Arts Council budget goes to opera, no wonder people are complaining.
I wonder what the staff turnover will be. Chief credential will be that the successful candidate must have skin like a rhino!
Most people love complaining anyway, so one might as well get paid for listening to it. Doesn’t sound that bad to me — on top of benefits, you also get your daily fix of Schadenfreude. Tons of qualified applicants in the classical music world.