One supposes being honest isn’t always helpful, but you would think in an attempt to change perceptions you wouldn’t just follow the typical, expected approaches to attention-grabbing audiences, in this article, through copywriting.

Those methods that everyone seems to see through anyway and just ignore or just take at face value and – without much consideration or even critical thinking – blank them out. Having some life, some humanity even, in these attempts, would surely help to inspire potential candidates (and existing staff) across departmental silos to show that meaningful change can be, and is, possible.

The article that focuses this article

There are three slightly disparate and somewhat bureaucratic statements that really do not go a lot beyond fulfilling a tick box being ticked and a process being completed, that one has seen recently and compelled me to write out some angst about them.

Admittedly, standardisation can be useful, even appropriate at certain times, but this passage really does feel too deliberate, a tad typical of corporate-speak and somewhat telling that possibly no one inside the organisation has really looked at the employment application process for a while, probably since their own application, and so it is rarely ever seen or considered. If it is, well, what is the purpose of a charity acting like it's a corporate behemoth (a bit like a certain public service broadcaster seeming like its one, too)?

A return to old fashioned ways is never a forward-thinking process and clarity and purpose is still always a good keystone to focus intent but a little realism and spirit, even light humour, has got to be a more humanistic and relatable way to engage and inspire potential, certainly in a tired, early twenty-first-century, surely?

Anyway, seeing this piece . . .

What it’s like to work here

We’re bigger than you think, we’re more complicated than we appear and we’re larger scale than you’d imagine. We have passionate people in our teams and so much more we want to achieve. We’re for everyone, for ever, and we really mean that.

. . . was a slightly deflating experience.

Not sure boasting about organisational size, certainly its complexity, is a helpful factor in inspiring applicants (or even the organisation itself) to face reality and sound worthy and meaningful, despite credentials.

Appreciate lying or, like marketing does, being artistic with the truth, as it were, is malpractice, but do less and do it better, as countering with passion and ambition that kind of suggest being bigger and more complex is a way to further success (or trying to lessen those things is the dream of which applicants can so say help to do), along with a finale that (cynically?) feels the needs to say that it’s all really meant, seems a bit hollow.

But, they do really mean it because they wrote that they really mean it, so it’s true and everything is fine, which actually just comes across that it isn’t really fine or important, or even integral, to something it’s just something to say to appear important.

However, probably overthinking so maybe something like this could work better . . .

What it’s like to try and work with us

We’re a tad unwieldy, slightly discordant and class and its affects still mould us and we’re always trying to (justify ourselves and) figure things out through near-endless roles, meetings and data analysis and sometimes we can be too big for our boots. We can tire staff (and viewers and visitors) out with admin and bureaucracy but generally expect so much more from them despite entrenched attitudes, hierarchies and silos. We’re hanging in there, a bit like a wonky bauble during a dodgy festive break with the in-laws, or maybe outlaws . . . mostly thanks to membership fees and visitor holidays and over-egging (maybe even mistaking) nostalgia (and tradition) as heritage to remain pointlessly kept at potentially great expense (although statutory power did (and still still do?) help), as do settings for TV and film and appear important, grand, relevant and meaningful for everyone – even the dust.

The opposite way

Sometimes, investigating and then trying to do the worst job (even on and around the little ‘unseen’ details and especially the ones not typically seen by the very setters and providers of their own service and even the intangible like ‘an experience’), gives one a clearer and better picture and perspective to seeing how an experience, a role, process or service can be improved, reimagined or even just got rid of.

Anyway, an attempt at an alternative, shown below, is probably rubbish . . . still, one would like to hope some opinion (or even point(s)) have been made in this article and that helpful conversation and debate might even occur for people reading it and then critically wondering about it and using its suggestions . . .

Work with us

We learn and look after the nature and history in our care and support the people, places and spaces that bring it to life.

Join us and help fuel our aims, passions, people and teams with your own skills and views that could help us continue to consider, craft and care for the many locations that weave their threads through the generations, attitudes and changes of our shared communities and collective stories and the projects that help drive their existence to and for new horizons and opportunities.

Still, this article helped get some thoughts of me chest, despite my use of the word nature feeling a little dualist in its divisiveness, treating nature (and perpetuating its oft-used approach) like its a separate entity when it is actually integral to all life and a part of everything, whatever its scale . . . but then how else could one describe these parts without being specific?

Hey ho . . . honesty might help sometimes . . .