Chris Oakley
Banned
Good morning. My name's Carlton and I'll be your training supervisor for your first week here at the museum. Since this is your first day on the job, we'll focus on getting you familiarized with the museum layout and the basics of what you'll be doing as a tour guide here. First let's get you signed in on the employee time chart...that's the book with the green cover. The book with the red cover is the visitors' guestbook. Okay, now scan your ID badge at the security desk and follow me to the lobby...Here's the coatroom, the gift shop, the museum library, and the cafeteria; just off the main entrance you’ll find the
chapel; and directly ahead is the museum information desk-- that's where you'll meet up with the group tours and school field trips.
I see you're glancing at some of the display cases in the exhibit halls here on the ground floor. In case you're wondering-- and we must get asked this question at least a hundred times a day around here --that is the actual Mannlicher-Carcano rifle police found in Lee Harvey Oswald's possession when they arrested him. Cost an arm and a leg to get the Feds to part with it, but it was worth every penny, believe me. That rifle's the number two most popular exhibit we've got at this museum....the number one exhibit's up on the
sixth floor. We'll get to that one later.
Now, since your job as a museum guide will obviously involve a lot of public interaction, let me give you a few simple pointers. First, treat every visitor with the utmost courtesy and respect. Second, since some of the exhibitions here may be too intense for younger may be too intense for younger patrons, be sure to let their parents know about available age-appropriate alternatives. Third, and most important, if any of those conspiracy kooks start harassing you with their idiotic theories about why Oswald died while he was trying
to get his conviction for Kennedy's assassination overturned, just walk away or call one of our security guards. We don’t need any more caught-on-tape confrontations with the nutjobs....I still wince when I think about that YouTube video of our assistant exhibitions director getting in a shouting match with Alex Jones.
Now while we're on our way to the second floor, let me fill you in on some of the other exhibits here on the first floor. You'll notice that on the walls, we have a comprehensive timeline of every event from the time President Kennedy was shot to the day that the Romney Commission submitted their final report on the investigation into Lee Harvey Oswald's death in prison; we take a lot of pride in its accuracy and attention to detail-- our research staff spent months compiling it. And on a purely personal note, I think the Romney Commission was right: Oswald couldn't take the strain of knowing he’d spend the rest of his life in prison and decided to hang himself. A coward right to the end.
Over there, just a few feet from the rifle display, is the prison uniform of the inmate who first notified guards of Oswald's suicide. You might have heard of him. Jacob Rubenstein, a.k.a. Jack Ruby. “Dateline” did a special on him last year. He got nailed on drug charges around the same time Oswald filed his appeal and was serving three to five for narcotics distribution when Oswald committed suicide. Ruby was on his way to the exercise yard one morning when he happened to glance into Oswald’s cell and saw him hanging from the ceiling by a noose made from strips of bedsheet. Ruby said his only regret was that he hadn't had the chance to shoot Oswald himself.
On your right as you're walking up to the elevator you'll notice a rare original copy of the Dallas Morning Herald extra edition which hit the stands when Oswald was convicted of assassinating JFK. The way my dad told it, five minutes after that extra went to press you couldn’t get one for love or money. And they’re getting harder to find all the time-- just the other day somebody put a copy up for sale on eBay and it was gone in ten minutes. That one went for $1.5 million, and it had half its pages missing! Imagine what a complete copy would have gone for....Anyhow, to pick up where I left off, today we'll be concentrating on
the basics of your job as a tour guide. Tomorrow I'll show you how to work the multimedia displays, Wednesday you'll meet your shift supervisors, Thursday and Friday you’ll meet the rest of the tour guides, and on Saturday you'll receive your official museum employee locker assignment.
Any questions so far? No? Good. Now let's get to the second floor....
THE END
