take this job and shove it (was let's cut..)

[Rick Florence]

Jeff,

I'm not disagreeing with your statement that a qualified technician should
earn a good living.  I know there are schools that don't put a lot of
emphasis on piano technology.

I just don't see how complaining about it amongst ourselves, or even coming
up with some guidelines will change those schools' priorities.  It has to be
faculty driven - either on their own, or through their organization, NASM
(see Fred's last post).

I still hold with my original point: If the job is that bad, change it.  If
it can't be changed, leave.  Life's too short to be miserable.

Rick

on 6/19/03 9:40 AM, Jeff Tanner at jtanner@mozart.music.sc.edu wrote:

> Hi Rick,
> Here's where I'll disagree with you.
> 
> I think that no matter how "indispensable" we make ourselves, it will not
> guarantee our job security, nor increase our salaries.  State government
> employees get a bad rap for being unproductive, and in some areas, that
> reputation may be well deserved.  But if a tech is willing to work hard to
> make him/herself indispensable, that just means the government/institution
> is getting a higher rate of productivity.  You don't get salary raises in
> the public sector for becoming indispensible the way other jobs do from
> private sector companies.
> 
> Unfortunately, regardless of qualifications/skills/talent, those who set
> salary ranges for us look at other schools to determine salary levels for
> given occupations.  My dean told me not to expect our school to be a trend
> setter for higher salaries, because it hasn't been traditionally so.
> 
> But what is not considered in the process is that what may be a great
> salary for a single person, or a semi-retired tech with no children to
> support, might not pay for trailer park living for a tech with a family.
> Sure, if I was single, this salary would be fine.  I wouldn't need a 3
> bedroom home in a safe neighborhood with good schools, where the kids would
> have friends like themselves to build their social skills after school.  I
> wouldn't need a 2nd vehicle for the wife, roomy enough for
> child-safety-seats AND suitcases.  I wouldn't have $80 water bills, $200
> power bills and $600 grocery bills every month.
> 
> But this salary shouldn't be set up for a single person with no dependents.
> This skill SHOULD provide a modest living for a family, and there should be
> no expectation that the wife needs to get a job so that 90% of her
> bring-home pay can go to paying for someone else to raise the children, and
> the other costs associated with her going to work.  This is a skill and a
> talent that few in this country have, and the fact that the salary I am
> paid is based on a salary that a single person, semi-retired person, or a
> person taking a huge paycut because health insurance has become
> unaffordable finds reasonable is what I have qualms with, while private
> sector techs earn double our salary and more.
> 
> Becoming "indispensible" goes only as far as how much the next guy will
> take the job for.  If I can't stay for this salary, administrators see that
> other schools are only paying so much, and figure they can probably find
> some other single, semi-retired, looking for lower health insurance costs
> etc., tech who can be "indispensable" for a lower salary, and the
> administration really doesn't give a rat's behind what kind of PTG
> qualifications that person might have as long as the faculty is satisfied.
> And all that usually takes is for a person to be able to tune a pianer and
> fix it when it breaks.
> 
> If Fred's belief that we'll have universal health care (or at least
> regulation)  reasonably soon does come to pass, I'll have a heck of a lot
> easier time telling the school to raise the salary or I'm gone.  But right
> now, my outside clientele is so small I can't take that leap.  And I think
> this is the issue most of the other techs who are either already CAUTs or
> are considering becoming CAUTs are dealing with.
> 
> There aren't many of these jobs out there, particulary in my part of the
> world, where I can stay within reasonable driving distance of family.
> Turnover is extremely low and one of these positions comes available at the
> rate of about one every 15 years in this part of the country.  My
> predecessor was here 22 years.  One tech at another local institution has
> been full-time since 1987, and was on contract since 1972!  So, if you like
> this work, and you have one of these positions, you'd better keep it.
> 
> You just shouldn't have to adjust to a trailer park lifestyle if you've got
> a family, or be forced to work an extra 20 or 30 hours a week to make up
> for it.
> 
> Look, if the guy across the street can't be hired at a $70K job playing on
> computers all the time for the simple fact that he was accustomed to $100K
> plus income and nobody will hire him because they're afraid he'll take off
> as soon as the economy turns around, and computer techies are pretty much a
> dime a dozen at that income level (I can throw a rock and hit 3 houses on
> my street where that's been the case in the past year), wouldn't you think
> that the ONE full-time CAUT position in the whole state would be worth at
> least $50-60K?
> 
> Sure it is.  But it can't be, because other schools aren't paying what the
> position is worth either.
> 
> It's not that the "job is so bad..."  But if you expect qualified techs to
> take these jobs, the pay has got to get better.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> Rick Florence wrote:
>>> From the "if your job is so bad, why don't you get a new one"
>> department:
> 
> 
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> 

_____________
Rick Florence
Piano Technician
Arizona State University, School of Music