Ever since I got out of piano tuning school (I attended the Piano Hospital and Training Center, in Vancouver, Washington) I have said that my eventual goal is to get one of these university jobs. My favorite kind of customers really are musicians and other "picky types", and I also would like to have a job where I am an employee of a university or school system and have my tuning-in-homes business be supplementary. But recently, I have begun to get opinions that working for a university really isn't as wonderful as I seem to think it might be. These opinions seem to be that the technician can "never really please" a lot of the clients and there is all that "unnecessary stress" that goes along with that fact, the technician is "always on call", one can't make nearly the money at a university that can be made in business for oneself if that person is good at business and selling, etc. It seems that a signifigant number of people don't stay with these jobs very long and end up going back into business for themselves. What do those of you who work for universities really think of it. If you had known then what you know now, would you make the same decision? If the answer, for you, is yes, what extra preparation would you advise me to get before applying for one of these jobs; I'm sure that being an rpt is wonderful, but that alone wouldn't be nearly enough of a qualification to be considered. I'm sure the answers to this question vary as much as those answering it, but I wonder if that grass only appears greener to me. Ah, yes. I guess that if you are going to send a message saying, "I hate this "so- and-so" job!", perhaps you should answer anonymously, or send me private e-mail.
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