Nirvana Art Gallery

NIRVANA ART GALLERY

Christine Ho, University of Adelaide

It was an irony not lost on many of the employees of Nirvana Art Gallery. This gallery was far from being a place of harmony and joy. In fact, some of the employees preferred to refer to management using the acronym "NAG" in a derogatory manner.

Nirvana was regarded as one of the leading art museums in Australia. The collection of Australian art was one of the oldest and best known in the country. This museum also housed an enviable aboriginal collection and an international collection of considerable breadth and depth.

Rod was the assistant curator for the curatorial unit. Despite his job title, his time was divided between the curatorial and research units because there was not enough work in the former to keep him occupied from week to week. It was agreed between the managers of the two units that he work Mondays through Wednesdays at curatorial and then the remaining days at research. Although Rod would have preferred to work solely for curatorial because that was where his interests lay, he was in no position to argue with either manager. He hoped that when he finished his PhD in art history he would be employed full- time in curatorial, where he could fully use his specialized knowledge and meet his aspiration to be a curator.

Rod did not particularly enjoy coming to work on Thursdays. The research he was asked to do was okay. It was not that stimulating, but he convinced himself that it was useful to understand the functions of the different units in the gallery and not restrict himself to purely curatorial issues. The research unit was quite small, and the staff were very serious. Be¬cause they were located within close proximity to each other, he tried initially to be friendly to them while they worked.

When he kept getting frowns and annoyed looks from his colleagues, it became obvious that they did not like being interrupted. Further, they assumed he did not have enough work to do, so they kept giving him more tasks. Rod found him¬self falling behind and having to ask for permis¬sion to stay late to finish his work. Because the gallery housed expensive art works, security was tight. All staff members were expected to leave by 5 p.m. and not return until the following morn¬ing after 8 a.m. Managers were strict about grant¬ing this special permission because security had to be notified so that alarm systems could be ad¬justed and monitored accordingly. Because the research manager, Nelly, often stayed late she did not mind granting Rod permission as well.

On Friday morning Rod met with Nelly to give her the report he had written about business plans.

"Thanks Rod, it looks good," said Nelly, as she flipped through the document "You're still work¬ing on that draft document on the current spend¬ing and budget allocation for this year, aren't you? Andrew can help you with this."

Rod hesitated. "Oh, I think I have all the nec¬essary information, and I'm sure Andrew is busy anyway If I stay late tonight, I might be able to give it to you before I leave work."

"What's wrong?" asked Nelly.

"It's nothing. I just always get the impression that I'm disturbing everyone in research. They seem really busy all the time and don't seem to have time for anything else. I'm more of a socia¬ble and friendly person, and 1 like to talk with others while I work."

Nelly gave him a look that Rod did not know how to decipher. I hope she does not think I am complaining about my job or my colleagues, Rod thought to himself as he walked out of her office. He liked the fact that no one was breathing down his neck all the time. And the last thing he needed was to create animosity between himself and the rest of research. It was bad enough that they al¬ways went out for lunch together and never in¬vited him. But at least they could say hello whenever he was there.

The following Thursday, when Nelly came into the research area to talk to one of the re¬searchers, she came by his desk to say that she had read both his reports that he finished last week, thanked him for his hard work, and asked how his work was going. He appreciated the at¬tention. Over the following weeks when he was in research, she would come by and talk to him.

This sometimes included complimenting him on his appearance. How his shirt color emphasized his eyes, or his new stylish haircut made him look more handsome. At least someone was talking to me, thought Rod. He did not think her comments were appropriate, but he accepted them graciously with a smile, making sure he kept his comments professional. He also tried to minimize how often he had to stay late at work so as not to give the wrong impression. But usually that was not possible given his workload.

It was not long before the other researchers noticed the attention she gave him. He started noticing the surreptitious