A Question re: Stealing Customers??

[Maxpiano@AOL.COM]

List,

I've been heartened by the tone of the many responses so far.  Although we are
not all perfect yet, gone are the days when it was common for every 'tuner' to
jealously guard his own trade secrets and slander every other tuner within 50
miles.

Even if we discover that another technician has been deliberately fishing in
our pond, I see no need for a confrontation about it.  A fair amount of the
work I do is regular repeat (contract) work for churches.  It is my practice
to leave my card on every piano when I am finished, in the hope someone will
see it and give me a call for their home piano.  Occasionally that happens.

One day I went to one of these contract pianos to find the card of a fellow
technician -- not a quild member -- with whom I am quite well acquainted.  He
most certainly did not tune it, since I have the contract.  I assume he was
"fishing" for work.  He may in fact not have known that it was "my" territory
(as if I owned it).

I have never brought the issue up to him.  He has referred jobs to me,
including one I will do later this month.  I have had him refinish pianos for
me.  Making an issue of if would be terribly immature of me.

As far as fellow guild members are concerned, I have received far, far more
than I have given (so I must not be very blessed, if it is "more blessed to
give than to receive").  I have received not only in terms of advice and
counsel but outright work referred to me that was either closer for me to get
to in my travels, or in the line of several specialties I do that no one else
in the area seems to be interested in.

It is true that I thought long and hard about joining the guild.  It was not
fear of competition, but a false impression gained when I would find a card
from either of two local fellows who --Ithought-- didn't known their hitch pin
from a nose bolt, but were in the guild and using the logo on their cards.  I
figured if they were samples of who was in the guild, I didn't need it.
Fortunately, they have passed from the scene and two RPT's became close
friends and began sharing the journal with me.

Really, there are no negatives to guild membership as I have experienced it.
Come on aboard!

Bill Maxim, RPT