Last week, the largest cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology company in the United States, Chronicle Heritage, ceased operations. While the dust is still clearing as I write this post, somewhere between 200 and 600 CRMers lost their job in a single day which would be the largest CRM layoff in U.S. history. Spencer over at Social Stigma and the rest of us are among the many that are trying to figure this out.
The company has not released any publications describing the circumstances behind this work stoppage and the internet is riven with “information” so it’s hard to know exactly what was going on. I have spoken with two people that I’ve known for a long time that used to work for CH. They both told me that financial mismanagement combined with potential changes in historic preservation legislation led the company’s overlords to determine that CRM wasn’t going to be profitable at CH in the near-term. So, they pulled the plug.
The same story in cultural resource management played itself out again.
The result of this massive closure has been catastrophic for those working at CH but mixed amongst the many of us that didn’t work there. As someone that has worked for large CRM-only companies, I can attest that these places tend to be bad employers somehow filled with some of the best archaeologists of our generation. Bigger companies are able to attract excellent people because we tend to think that larger employers are more stable (and they are). This attracts some of the best among us who are somehow let down when the inevitable happens.
Instability in archaeology is not a bug. It’s the main feature.
The CRM industry operates like all other human organizations. Just like thoughts, they appear, linger for a while, and fade away. It is our belief in the permanency of these things that leads to dissatisfaction and disappointment. It’s almost like the Buddha was on to something when they noted this phenomenon.
It is difficult to stay employed in CRM at the same employer for very long because it is exceedingly hard to keep consistently generating revenue in an industry where no company can claim a competitive edge. Clients want to “solve their problem” (NOTE: The “problem” is the fact that they have to comply with laws) and they don’t want to spend money to get it solved but they must. Savvy clients know hiring the cheapest, bottom-of-the-barrel CRM consultant is probably going to lead to problems, so most are willing to spend more than the absolute minimum but not enough to hire the absolute best in their field.
Most companies will lose money if they charge the absolute lowest rates, but they’ll also lose contracts if they charge enough to provide for healthy profits, high wages, and excellent benefits, which would retain the top, talented staff. There’s nothing in the industry that keeps companies from undercutting themselves. Clients don’t really care as long as they get their “cultural resources box” checked. And archaeologists will jump ship to the company that seems like it will provide the best opportunities (That is unless we’re laid off first). When we get laid off, we’ll either: 1) start our own company (adding competition) or, 2) take any job we can find. This means the competition for contracts and talented archaeologists in the middle of CRM is always fierce and it’s also where most of the action is. Bottom feeders drop out fast or get bought out. Boutique firms must focus on a very narrow, but lucrative, band of clients. Most companies have to fight it out in the arena but there are few guarantees that any firm can remain in the middle forever; therefore, the entire CRM archaeology industry is always in flux.
These forces also maintain an upper limit for the size to which a CRM-only company can grow. This maximum size varies across the country, but, basically, a CRM company will grow until it gets bigger than the revenue it can consistently generate. At some point, overhead in the form of payroll, taxes, benefits, equipment, office space and everything that goes into running a company, will get so large that the company will no longer be cost-competitive. At that point, the company will need bigger and bigger contracts, which it is not guaranteed to receive, otherwise it will start going into decline. Until recently, it seems like CRM companies grew by hiring select individuals that could bring in new contracts or help improve company processes while crippling competitors. Maybe someone who has been around longer can correct me, but it seems like about 15–20 years ago CRM-only firms started outright buying smaller companies rather than poaching select employees. Engineering firms had long used this process, but it seems like CRM-only firms started doing it too. Once acquired, the larger firm laid off “redundant” staff and assumed all the previous company’s contracts.
While firms continued growing, it also seems like everyone forgot about the reality that companies can grow so large that they are no longer cost competitive. As someone that has been laid off many times in the past, I saw the writing on the wall with regard to Paleowest’s transmogrification into Chronicle Heritage, but I guess the people running those companies forgot about impermanence. And then it happened. The firm that was too big to fail failed. It took a while, but what happens to every single company that has ever existed happened in archaeology. Sears, Lehman Brothers, Enron, Kodak, and now Chronicle Heritage.
There is more to this story than I know, and it will take weeks for the whole thing to unfold. For now, I just want to say I feel bad for all the hard-working CRMers that got laid off through no fault of their own. I’ve been the one on the receiving end of a layoff notice more than once and I know it really sucks. Fear. Anxiety. Depression. Anomie. In my experience, all of those were feelings I had after receiving notice. I really do hope there is an abundance of work out there and all of you can quickly land new jobs soon.
But this entire saga and the industry’s response also remind me of the recent movie Disclosure Day.
Archaeology and Disclosure Day
[SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m going to talk about stuff that will ruin the ending for you. Do not read any further than this if you feel like I’m going to spoil things for you.]
Disclosure Day is a 2026 movie directed by Stephen Spielberg and featuring Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor. It’s about a government conspiracy to conceal information about extraterrestrial life.
I loved this movie not just because it’s a Spielberg production (Close Encounters and E.T. anyone?) but because I want to believe in extraterrestrials. To me, knowing that we’re not alone in the universe would change everything. Based on simple probability, I feel like there should be other “intelligent” life out there in the universe, but we haven’t found any reliable proof. It doesn’t make sense that life like we know on earth only happened once in the entire galaxy but where are our interstellar neighbors?
In the movie, the government knows extraterrestrials were real but is covering it up. They hide proof of extraterrestrial life even while they researched ways to use alien technology. Agency leaders think everyday citizens will go insane if they learn that aliens are real; that society will fall apart if we learn the truth. The whole movie is about disclosing this conspiracy, allowing the public to decide what to do with the knowledge that we are not alone.
In the movie, the aliens are super advanced and use their organic bodies and technology to communicate in ways that would break the average human brain. And they’ve been studying us, learning our capabilities and their research reveals that human empathy is our superpower. Caring about others is how we keep from destroying ourselves and the world. The aliens decide to reveal themselves as a last-ditch effort keep us from destroying ourselves through nuclear war.
The Conspiracy
Disclosure Day is a fictitious movie, but I also feel like it is an analogy for how we perceive of our jobs, the economy, and everyday life. When it comes to the CRM industry (actually, every industry) our employers want us to think that everything is permanent. That the company is stable and going to last for generations. That if you work hard and do your job, you’ll reap a rewarding career and climb higher on the ladder. The conspiracy is that they want you to believe that even if you do lose your job or switch to another employer, the same adage [work hard >> do your job >> get promoted >> make more money >> work hard…] will produce the results you’ve always wanted (e.g. self-actualization and fulfillment).
The reality is everything in CRM, as well as every single career, is temporary. Diligent hard work, dedication, and loyalty will never get you where you want to be in your career because you also have to play The Corporate Politics Game. Every employer is the same: you need to work just hard enough to show competence but also show your supervisors that you’re worthy of promotion. This means brownnosing with the higher ups but also with your co-workers since you never know who’s going to get promoted before you. Someday, they may control your destiny. However, you can’t look like you’re a total a$$kisser. Just a “good girl/guy”— Someone that is cool and personable but also competent and willing to do the tasks that help your supervisor look good (e.g. get stuff done that helps your boss look good to their boss) but not do so many of those tasks that you get overworked. You have to keep from being a total doormat (e.g. the “go-to girl/guy”) because that will just lead to overwork since they’ll pile even more tasks on you since they know you can get it done. And you could become so “valuable” that they’ll never promote you out of your current position. You’ll also end up doing other inept co-worker’s work because you know how to get things done. There’s more to The Corporate Politics Game (ex. Not saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Always going along with whatever management thinks is a good idea. ect.), but the goal is to learn your $hit while showing your colleagues and supervisors that you’re competent while also doing just enough of the extra mile that you look like an asset to the company while not rocking the boat.
This is all fine and dandy for your current employer, but you have to job hop if you want to climb that ladder faster. You play The Corporate Politics Game then apply for a higher ranked position someplace else where you will take your skills, knowledge, and reputation to another employer where you start the cycle all over again, just at a higher rung on the ladder. It will take decades to climb the ladder at any one company. You can advance much faster if you hopscotch all over the industry, leaping to higher and higher positions at companies where they don’t know you yet. By the time they figure you out, it’s time to move to a new employer. You just keep doing this until you reach your Peter Principle limitor until you retire. Unless you just want to try and stay in the same position.
However, every employer is afraid that if you realize the truth (hard work alone does not bring you career advancement), you’ll no longer keep working for them [The reality is you’re going to keep working because you need the money. You’ll keep going for promotions and raises because lifestyle creep demands that you bring in more money. You’re not going to stop working simply because you know your employer is full of $hit. You’ll tow the party line because you don’t have another option.] Employers will dangle promotions and raises in your face because they want you to keep making them money but rarely do these advancements translate into anything that would improve your life. It’s considered taboo to just tell them the truth:
Supervisor: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
You: “Doing whatever my supervisors tell me to do in order to earn more money.”
Supervisor: Stunned look. Speachless.
You: “Don’t you know I’m only doing this for money? I’m not going to quit because I need this job to pay my bills, which only keep increasing. So, I’ll do whatever you ask me to do but still want you to pay me more because I’ll leave for anyone that will pay me more money as long as I don’t have to do too much more work.”
Supervisor: Stunned. Incredulous that you aren’t telling them what they want to hear.
You: “That’s how skilled labor works in a capitalist system. I learned all this from you.”
The Revelation
Between ages 16 and about 40ish, almost all of us actually believe The Conspiracy but one day we realize the truth. One day, we watch some inept PhD get promoted to leadership despite the fact that they don’t know how to do CRM, have never dug a shovel probe, can’t use a compass, can’t write, and have only been with the company for a year. Or you bust your ass out there in the desert only for someone to scrutinize why you’re requesting a reimbursement for ice since the company has to legally provide water but not ice. Or you see an ass-kisser get their vacation request easily approved whereas they barely approved your FMLA so you could bond with your new baby after it was born.
Or, you get abruptly laid off out of the blue once profits take a dip.
The Revelation hits us like a bus, leaving us speaking in tongues. Like Emily Blunt’s character in Disclosure Day, you find yourself stammering in front of other people. Only you’re also fighting back the rage that this injustice caused. Your babbling is unintelligible to folks that still don’t realize The Conspiracy but those of us that do immediately understand. We give you a hug, a shoulder to cry on, and help you through your tough time.
Once you know, you’ll never be the same.
The Solution
Empathy is our only true hope. The only solution to our predicament. Just like in Disclosure Day, being empathetic to the plight of the workers while also understanding it’s the system that makes us act this way. The system perpetuates The Corporate Politics Game that encourages our bosses to act the way they do, to maintain this unstable system. Being empathetic to the plight of folks in our predicament is the only way through events like this.
Our bosses are climbing the ladder, playing the game. Otherwise, they would not agree to all the senseless performative workativity they have to do just to earn a paycheck. They think they are helping their careers by helping the company and they think that harvesting more profits is actually a good thing. That is only true if you work for an employee-owned cooperative or a company that has profit sharing. Hard work alone will never help your career if you work for a company run as a C or S-Corporation, an LLC or has a board of directors, or is fueled by venture capital. Neither will helping dramatically increase their profits since that only perpetuates the game by provoking their greed. Everything beyond keeping up with inflation, other external cost increases, and a sensible profit only puts more money in the pockets of investors and board of directors that don’t actually make any of the product or do the work. How do their profits and growth help you in your day-to-day job? We are only pawns to these investor-owned organizations. We can only earn more money in those companies by job hopping and playing The Corporate Politics Game.
Doing archaeology at a university isn’t going to save you either. There’s a version of The Corporate Politics Game if you work in academia too. Once you earn tenure, you can only get promotions by doing even more busywork, increasing performative workativity, while continuing to tow the party line—even as you are still expected to teach and publish. Even if you don’t believe, you need to make it look like you believe in the mission of higher ed (scholarship, learning, and societal advancement) rather than the reality of higher ed (harvesting more money no matter what to build out the illusion of wealth and prestige so they can harvest more money). To increase your salary in academia you need to join more committees, attend more meetings, write more white papers and guidance documents that the administration doesn’t read, kiss the a$$ of administrators that don’t teach or do research, and network with other academicians that are doing the same thing. Or, you could moonlight for off-campus corporations, get patents, or start your own business—all options that perpetuate the system.
You start as a low-level associate professor/toadie and, like a true Pokémon monster, you advance by battling through more performative workativity like meetings, trainings, listening sessions, surveys, investigations, and other productivity theatrics. None of this is teaching or research (you know, the things universities are supposed to be doing). It’s called “service” which is essential to keeping the university running because professors don’t dictate what happens on campuses, administrators do. Administrators are no longer professors (In fact, many of the highest-ranking administrators were never professors). Your workativity creates jobs for tens of thousands of non-instructional staff whose entire careers center on creating more tasks for people to do regardless of how useless or time-consuming they are.
In time you can transmogrify into a professor/administrator, then evolve to a full-fledged administrator where you no longer teach or do research. You only do the bidding of the Board of Regents who want to build “prestige” and harvest ever increasing sums of money above all else. Through all of this you must keep playing The Corporate Politics Game—brownnosing, networking, cultivating workplace “allies,” fulfilling special appointments, taking interim positions, and demonstrating you can maintain the university’s growth and façade.
We can only survive this dharmic wheel of predatory insincerity and unproductive workativity if we join together and help each other out. Understand that you and your supervisor are cogs in the same machine. They are doing their role just as you are. They are just as brainwashed as you are. The only way this will change is if we co-create a new machine where performative workativity and productivity theatrics are second to actual performance, providing quality services, and producing stellar products. While important, economic outcomes should no longer the primary and sole consideration in CRM or academia because we are not simply providing another service. We are improving the quality of life for all citizens, which is something that is difficult to quantify in dollars alone.
I believe this transformation is best done through consensus from workers and supervisors, and if the organization is co-owned by labor and management. Employee-owned cooperatives make different decision than investor-owned corporations. There is more concern for the sustainable production, more consideration of the impacts of organizational decisions, and more concern for the welfare of employees and the environment. Profits take a back seat to organizational welfare when we all have a say in decision-making. However, if we can’t own the company we can at least unionize.
The Few
I can spend thousands more words on The Corporate Politics Game, but most people will still refuse to believe. Just like telling students that grades are a useless measurement of your real-world capabilities, most of you will refuse to believe that most of the existing system barely matters. This truth is just too jarring. To a certain extent, more wealth does not improve our lives. In fact, extreme wealth only seems to intensely magnify our problems. While most of us eventually see through The Conspiracy, only a few of us believe there is a different way.
We have to care about each other as human beings that deserve a good life if we’re ever going to change our workplaces. None of us was born to fill our lives with workativity, living a lie to make money only for them to wrestle it back out of our pockets again. We were reincarnated to live: To enjoy time with our friends and family. Explore personal interests. Have time to rest and relax. And the agency to improve the world around us.
While no place is perfect, I’ve seen a couple societies with much better work-life balance and a strong separation between work and everyday life. My colleagues in Denmark work hard from 9 to 5 during the workweek but are not expected to work after their workday is over. Same with my colleagues in the Netherlands. Evenings and weekends are reserved for friends, family, and relaxation. Of course, rather than wasting their money on weapons, folks in these countries use their taxes to provide amenities for citizens. In Denmark, childcare and college are covered by taxes. College is also affordable in the Netherlands. College students are paid stipends as long as they’re enrolled in school and are given significant stipends after graduation to ease their transition to the workforce. Danes are legally entitled to five weeks of vacation each year and the Dutch are legally entitled to four weeks of vacation. My colleagues in these countries are 100% unreachable during the summer when most families take at least an entire month off for vacation. Business-as-usual simply does not happen for the entire summer. No university department, museum, or CRM company is expected to perform at peak strength during these months because people get an entire month off. And they are not expected to do any form of work at all during these times.
I must strongly reiterate—Neither of these countries is perfect. Both grapple with racism, ethnocentrism, and anti-immigrant political forces; Denmark more than the Netherlands. Politics in both of these places are also becoming more conservative, almost supremacist (In fact, Denmark has some immigration policies designed to traumatize non-white immigrants by forcibly relocating them so as to prevent them from making their own neighborhoods. Danes also recognize a “third generation” immigrant status, which means folks that have been in the country for generations aren’t considered “true” Danes). Also, both countries are known for high taxes, but I argue that, when Americans account for health insurance, retirement investments, student loans, AND taxes, I pay much more of my salary on these things that are provided by the government in Denmark and the Netherlands. I also see how people living in these countries get so much more from their governments than I do in California.
While I advocate for co-ownership of companies, this is not common in Denmark, the Netherlands, or any other country. Cooperatives can be found in all nations, but they are not the primary form of employer. However, the governments of several other countries do a better job of forcing corporations to work for the betterment of society, appropriately taxing the wealthy for the money they make of the back of the citizenry, and enforcing anti-monopolistic practices. Also, other societies do a better job of pushing back against overwork and burnout. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist but climbing the corporate ladder is less attractive if the top tax rate is 60% like it is in Denmark versus 37% in the United States. In other countries workers think twice about taking positions that are likely to lead to overwork and workaholism is seen as a pathology and sickness. People think you have a problem if you can’t get your work done in a 40-hour workweek.
These countries got these privileges because of strong labor activism. The Danes earned their paid vacation benefits through strong unionization and the European Union’s high labor standards. More than 60% of Danish workers are in a union and over 80% are covered by collective bargaining agreements. Union membership is much lower in the Netherlands but over 70% of employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. In the United States, barely 10% of employees are unionized and less than 1% of us are covered by collective bargaining.
I guess, when it comes to improving workplace conditions, harnessing the power of labor is second to owning the means of production. These countries also have strong social safety nets for the times when the inevitable layoffs, downsizings, and bankruptcies happen. This gives even more flexibility for companies to manage labor and it gives workers the agency to leave unsuitable jobs since they will receive unemployment and/or retraining if they so choose.
Maybe CRM shouldn’t prioritize growth
Chronicle Heritage’s demise is a cautionary tale of what happens when a CRM company gets too big. By “too big,” I mean so large that its overhead can no longer be supported by CRM contracts. But it’s also a perennial tale of the economic system of which we are all a part.
In 2027, I will have enjoyed a decade in at my current employer. This will be the longest I’ve worked for the same employer in my entire life—including the decade I spent doing CRM full time. The only way I was able to find some sort of job security was by earning a PhD and landing a tenure track job—which is something that only 10% of all PhDs will have and something that less than 10% of all archaeologists in the United States will experience. Being a professor is not perfect, but the job pays on time, has benefits, and a retirement plan which is something I never knew for more than 36 months at a time when I was a CRMer.
I truly do feel for all of those affected by the Chronicle Heritage closure. Right now is the time for us to practice empathy for all those working for a company that didn’t have a great reputation for high pay or good quality of work. CH consumed several companies that had good archaeologists working there and its revenue model didn’t provide much space for the company’s leaders to always consider ethical practices. They had to prioritize growth over every other consideration, even the quality of work or the sustainability of this strategy. I encourage all of us to help CH’s unemployed find jobs while also remembering the sequence of events that led to CH’s demise. There is plenty of pressure in CRM for us to forget about our ethical obligation to provide the necessary data for agencies to make informed decisions about potential adverse effects and/or mitigate those effects. Our ethical conduct is increasingly important today given the strong assault on the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). We might be the last generation of archaeologists to provide these services.
Cultural resource management archaeology is also more than simply providing a service. Our job is to act on behalf of the United States Government because, as the NHPA says, We the People have the right to know our own past through historic properties. We are the experts that help agencies fulfill the spirit of this law on behalf of all Americans. The problem is when the profit motive forces us into untenable positions. The Corporate Politics Game forces us to do whatever it takes to keep our jobs. This means prioritizing the profit incentive and growth. Also, we Americans can’t rely on labor protections and don’t have a strong social safety net. We don’t have the same privileges as archaeologists in places like Denmark or the Netherlands. The result is employees whose personal identity is intrinsically linked to work for our survival. Corporate jobs in America, even academia, asks us to give our all to the organization. We Americans become our jobs and that’s not healthy. All of us must engage in performative workativity, productivity theatrics, and remain beholden to growth über alles because the alternative is unemployment.
I do not have a perfect solution to this conundrum, but we might have to rethink the growth and profit incentives for industries like CRM and academia. Maybe these are social goods that shouldn’t be subject to venture capital and The Corporate Politics Game. Additionally, perhaps we should all take action to increase protections for workers in the United States. Unionization is a path that many western countries have taken but I also think employee-owned cooperative should play a larger role in our economy, especially in industries that provide a social good like archaeology and education.
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