Jean said:
Hmmmmmmm....... wax enthusiastic, tell them you'll do anything (even if it's NOT exactly what you want to do!)
J
Hi Armstrong,
Jean is 110% right on! Not only will a willingness to do anything help to get your foot in the door, you may find that a job other than the one you have set your sights on to be surprisingly valuable.
Another thing to consider is volunteering at a small facility rather than a large one. Here in Washington state we have the Seattle aquarium, which has a rather long waiting list for volunteering, and a number of small facilities that are usually starved for volunteers. Further, the workload at a small facility tends to be less compartmentalized than you might find at a large aquarium.
I'm a docent (actually, they've started to call us "Volunteer Naturalists") at the Fiero Marine Life Center in Port Angeles, WA. Fiero is one of the small, volunteer starved, facilities. I'm something of an extrovert so my preference is to work with the public but I've also helped clean tanks, tend the grounds, collect specimens, feed the displays, and sweep the floor. BTW: If you're mainly interested in learning about the octopus or any other animal there is (IMHO) no more humbling or exhilarating way to do so than to spend several hours a week answering the public's questions - you'll be surprised by how much you do know and stunned at how much you don't. Every week I come home from my 'shift' and dive into the reference books and the web looking for information on a question that I couldn't answer for someone.
A large aquarium will probably supply more formal training than a small one but, if the Seattle Aquarium is any example there is less opportunity for much informal mentoring to fill in the gaps left by the formal stuff.
I suspect that, in a large facility, the care of specific individual animals (Octos, seals, sea otters, etc.) is a pretty high seniority job for a volunteer so take Jean's advice and get your foot in the door with the willingness to do anything - besides, just about any job they have is going to be fun!
Voluntarily yours,
TPG