The Curator

by Charissa Nasrallah     

The Curator was relatively new to the animal forest.  She was a nice woman, who sincerely cared about the animals and tried her best to do her job.  She had been hired to bring new, innovative ideas into the Animal Forest, and that she did.  She had started an Enrichment program for the black bears.  Each morning before we would release the bears into the reserve, we would hide little snacks in the trees and hollow logs for them to find, and the bears loved it.  The Curator also designed an Outdoor classroom to be used for educational programs, which went over very well with our students.

However, just like the rest of the human population, not all her plan and ideas were successful.  Once she decided to take a baby bobcat away from its mother in the reserve, despite the disapproval of her coworkers.  She wanted to raise it by hand, hoping to use it in programs we did for our visitors.  But when the bobcat got bigger, it started attacking the employees.  They told her it was dangerous several times and she didn’t believe them, until it attacked her.  Personally, if I were ever to use a bobcat in a program, I would want it to rip me to shreds.  Then people could easily understand that these creatures are wild animals, and not pets.

There were other times when my coworkers expressed their concerns to the Curator, and she did not listen to what they were saying.  This became very frustrating to the common workers in the Animal Forest, including myself.  Now there is danger in not listening to experience, and the curator could be a very high risk woman at times. 

When I mentioned we should test the waters after the alligator had died the curator told me there was nothing we could do about the water, and I didn’t agree with her.  I don’t believe any one person is smart enough to know what exactly is or isn’t under our control, but I did believe that if the water was contaminated, we were responsible for doing something before any more of the animals got sick and died.

So I continued to express my concerns to her a few more times over the next two months.  Still no attempts to test the water quality were ever made or even called for.

I was aware that the Curator had a lot of responsibilities, especially since management had put her in charge of running all the educational programs as well as overseeing the maintenance of the animal forest.  I believed this was too big of a responsibility for any one person, but upper management thought otherwise.  Oddly enough, no one from upper management ever worked in the Animal Forest.

Then one day I discovered the Curator had changed a program I had designed about endangered species with out discussing it with me.  I had written a section stating how human habitat expansion created problems for much of the world’s wildlife, and people should consider the size of our species current population when planning the number of offspring they produce.  But the Curator had removed this section of my program and informed me I had no right expressing personal opinions in programs designed for the Animal Forest.

Perhaps she was right, but I still was miffed.  I do not believe anyone should act in anger, and I usually try to work this emotion out of my system with manual labor and exercise.  But I am human enough to confess there are times when I have let my emotions muddle my thinking.  Sometimes I contribute this to being a woman, and sometimes I contribute this to just being me.

I was not happy about several recent events in the Animal Forest, and an image of the Assistant Curator’s momma in her little pink nightie and her shotgun, came to mind.  I decided it was time to take some action.

I took the programs I had designed off the Curator’s computer so she could not change them anymore with out discussing it with me first.  Later that day the park’s upper management called me in the office to inform me I had not gotten the job as head of the education department, and I took it upon myself to inform them it was time we had the water in the Animal Forest tested.  The park’s upper management encouraged me to pursue my idea by bringing it to the attention of my supervisor.  I informed upper management I had already brought this to her attention several times over the past two months and nothing had been done.  Then I also informed upper management it was my personal opinion that the Curator could not handle all the responsibilities of both the maintenance and educational facets of the Animal Forest, and this was too much of a responsibility for any one person.

I have irritated more than one employer with my failure to keep my mouth closed about certain issues, but I have never gone over anyone’s head in a job with out initially discussing the problem with them first.   I didn’t have a problem with authority, but when it becomes obvious to a number of qualified workers that there is a problem that management is refusing to recognize, then something should be done.  It seems only fair that common workers should have the ability to discuss these matters with more than one person in their department.

Informing upper management about my concerns was my own attempt at controlling what went on in the Animal Forest, but it went against the Curator’s authority, and she was furious when I informed her about what I had done later that afternoon.  The next day I was called into a one on one conference with her in her office.  I was severely reprimanded and my work hours were immediately cut in half.  My new schedule didn’t even allow me the flexibility to car pool with my fellow workers.

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