charging for service

[Jim Kinnear]

Dear peggy...

perhaps you misinterpret the discussion on charging for overhead.

When you buy a blouse from Walmart, you are paying for their "overhead"

the lease, the lawyers, the snow being shoveled, the hydro, the manager's
salary, the clerks health plan etc etc.
All these things are 'overhead'
They are apportioned out to everything you buy and figure into the price.
What they DON'T do is charge you $12 for the blouse, and $1.25 for the
delivery cost of getting the blouse from the blouse factory to you,....
unlike the misleading prices quoted by car dealers.... but that's another
soapbox

A piano tuner is not  ( usually ) a philanthopist. I know there are many
times I have helped out seniors, yuong families with 'adjusted' prices, as
have many of my fellow tuners, but generally one has to make a living by
charging a fair price.

I guess this is the way it's done.

I hope you'll not neglect your poor piano due to your frustration with our
attempts to make a living.
If you do, we know who you are and where you live and you might get a visit
from the  ( oh no!! ) P.A.S.
The Piano Aid Society, or the ASPCP, the American Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Pianos!!!!
you've been warned!!!!!




-----Original Message-----
From: Peggy C. Bie <peggyb@gate.net>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: charging for service


>I am a visually disabled elderly widow.  Say I have a problem with my piano
or
>organ.  I have no income but a measly govt pension for disability.  I call
you
>and need a screw tightened.  Since I am visually impaired I can't see the
slot
>in the screw.  I ask for help.  In order to get it (I live alone, no
husband
>or kids or greedy selfish neighbors will help), I should pay you for your
>vacation, for your office expenses, for your overhead, for your driving to
200
>other customers, etc ad nauseum.  God free me from contacting you.  What
>happened to "love your neighbor"?  Do you assume I have savings or the
ability
>to earn an income?  I not only can't afford you, I don't want you.  I'd
rather
>do without.  Poor young mothers, abandoned by men, can't afford day care
and
>music lessons, much less instruments or instrument repaired.  Maybe I
should
>learn to hate music.  Maybe I should hate our greedy society.  Why should
any
>customer pay you for your overhead?  I WILL NOT.  In fact, I don't even
want
>to know you.  May God have mercy on your souls, blood-suckers.
>Peggy C. Bie
>"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." -Anais Nin
>http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/1095
>