Hi Paul, Condolences on your situation. I think Alan Crane's advice is very good, and I would certainly do my best to find out specifically who is the person Richard contacted. He probably built a relationship with the right person over a number of years, in trying to keep the humidity control system working. You committed a bureaucratic sin: you went over the heads of your immediate superiors. Not a wise thing to do. The best channel is "around" rather than "over." Over upsets people and gets you in trouble. Just to put it in perspective, consider how you would feel if a faculty member went to your director about an issue dealing with piano maintenance, perhaps something that had been requested and that you hadn't been able to get around to for various reasons. In any case, though it may be tempting to use your relationship with an upper administration person to get results, in the long term it may backfire, as it has. At this point, it is history, but a better approach would have begun with your administrator: "I have contacted facilities about the steam, and nothing has happened. I am worried about the effect of this dry condition on the pianos. What can we do?" IOW, start with your immediate superior trying to remedy the situation. Enlist aid or get advice. At this point, I'd still try to find the right person in facilities, in hopes of being able to establish a direct connection. But keep in mind that this is just a job. There are things that are outside your control. You do your best, and that is all you can do. Our facility regularly (annually) goes from 60% (August/September) to under 10% (January/February). We have very few soundboards with cracks (less than 20%, maybe less than 10%), no rib separation issues. So I wouldn't get too frantic about it. Don't bother with buckets of water. It won't make any difference. Good luck! Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu On Dec 1, 2008, at 3:51 PM, Paul T Williams wrote: > > Hi all! > > I always appreciate your input. Here's a new twist... > > Our building is currently dangerously dry. When Richard West was > here, the administrative secretary always told him to contact the > "facilities" people, directly, across campus who controls the campus > buildings to turn on the steam to remedy the situation. I was also > told this when I started to do this and and have, regularly. This > year, I have tried for the last 3 weeks to do this with no > results. Our humidity, now, is below 20% and the pianos have gone > completely wacky as you can imagine. > > After sending several messages to facilities, I got no results. I > sent another to our director, and another to the senior vice > chancellor ( a customer of mine for her personal piano) and other > esteemed folks. I got a "cease correspondance" message back from > our director.(probably embarassed) He now states that I have to > report to the finance/business director, who responds to him, who > responds to the Dean of Fine Arts, who then calls facilities to turn > on the humidity!!!!!! Is this the biggest load of political crap > you've ever heard of?? He states that I have to go through the > channels of authority to get anything done in "such a large > university:. With this crap, I might see the steam turned on in > January!!!! If ever....How come Richard was able to just get the > steam turned on? > > I now fear cracking boards, loose ribs, separating bridges, failing > glue joints of every kind, and the like. I then went to the > "finance/business manager" (?) and she said bluntly that she had no > time to deal with this issue today. > > Should I just throw up my hands and say, "whatever"? or should I go > to Home Depot and buy 110 buckets to put water in and set them under > each piano to try to help them through their "hospice"???? > > HELP!!!! > > Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081201/0c215ee6/attachment.html>
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