clothing

[Susan Kline]

At 11:36 AM 6/22/2002 +1000, Scott wrote:
>But it does make it into a tax deductible shirt!
>And there i was thinking it would look MORE professional to have a
>uniform.

I'd feel like a complete doofus wearing (an extra-large) shop
uniform with "Susan" embroidered above the left pocket. Maybe I
could do that on Halloween! This style of couture belongs almost
always to male professions. Actually, I think that the named
uniform tends to suggest people working as employees of a
company in groups. Someone in an auto shop wears a uniform
saying "Johnnie" because a car owner calling in and wanting
to find out what has been done to his car will be asked which
mechanic is working on it. Or, if someone comes in a van to
repair the furnace, and then it emits black smoke, whoever
is fielding complaints will ask, "which of our guys came out?"

For people who are self-employed, and often work alone, the
embroidered name doesn't seem to fit. It also does have a blue-collar
feeling. In piano work we're not quite blue or white collar. We
defy categories. Many of us have advanced degrees. Lots of us
are "retreads". I think that by daring to freelance the way
we do, just ignoring and forgetting about all those "benefits"
which the rest of the world think they can't live without,
we've earned the right to invent our own styles.

Clean, reasonably neat, and comfortable has always worked for me,
but I don't think of clothing as showing professionalism. I believe
that customers perceive professionalism initially from what I say
and later on from what I do, and from how I explain what I'm
doing. The biggest boost to a customer's sense that I'm professional
comes when I've fixed something that no one else fixed, especially
if they tried and failed to fix it. And always, in the background,
is musicianship. You don't have to wear that, or launder it, or
even think about it much. But what better to take into a piano customer's
home?

Susan