All day long they get question after question: "Where's the bathroom?" "Where's the Hope Diamond?" "Have you seen my 5-year-old son?" Sometimes their feet hurt. Sometimes they get headaches. Still, many Smithsonian museum guards say nothing beats peak tourist season.
"I love it, I love it, I love it," said Martin Slydell, a guard at the National Museum of American History. "I mean - Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, California, Chicago, New York - there are people from everywhere."In the summer months, the paths along the national Mall fill with rivers of people, cameras dangling from their wrists, money pouches around their waists, sneakers on their feet.
The museums of the Smithsonian often are their first destination in town. And the museum guards are among the first people they met.
So protecting precious artifacts is only a small part of each day's work for the guards: They're also part tour guide, part Dear Abby. They explain how to use the city's subway system, tell visitors where to find exhibits they came to see, point them toward landmarks like the Capitol, and make them feel welcome.
Many visitors zigzagging through the dimly lit American History lobby fail to notice Slydell - a 50-year-old man standing tall and proud in an immaculate guard's uniform.
But he takes everything in. In the year he's been at the museum, he has methodically memorized everything. Whatever the question, chances are he'll have the answer.
"A lot of people are expecting security to say, `Don't do this. Don't do that,' " he said. "They don't expect us to be educated."
When 22-year-old Elaine Slay got a job as a Hirshhorn Museum guard two years ago, she didn't know a Picasso from a Calder.
But Slay has grown to love the paintings since she started reading exhibit labels and listening to tours.