Duaine, It's really not so much what RPT buys you, although I hear it does help get referrals from PTG. What it buys for your potential new customers is an assurance that you have a clue, that you aren't going to tune by bending pins, that you'll be able to properly tie that broken, tieable bass string on the spot, rather than use the <wrong> "universal" string, or unnecessarily delay the repair by putting a single brand-new, out of sync bass string on their 45-yr-old piano; that when you discuss the feasibility of rebuilding it, whether you'll be doing the work or not, you know whereof you speak. Does one need to be an RPT to do these things? No, H--- no. Can other piano-owner friends vouch for their non-RPT tech? Of course. But if someone wants to be assured they are getting quality work done by someone who knows what they're doing, and that someone doesn't have any other resource, PTG's RPT offers that assurance. I also used to be a mainframe Sysprog (CICS), and IMS/DB2 DBA prior to that, and Cobol app pgmr before that. I'm not sure if there are viable certification programs for those positions YET, but there certainly are for the network guys/gals, and there certainly are for M$/OS (sorry, not to bring up a sore spot) support staff... probably Linux too, certainly Unix support has certifications. Paul Bruesch Stillwater, MN On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Duaine & Laura Hechler < dahechler at charter.net> wrote: > William, > > I was going to stop all emails on this subject, but I got to respond to > this one. > > RPT - what really is that and credibility to who. Yes, to yourself - and > - to the guild. > > Based on where I am, geographically, RPT means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the > customers - most of them have no idea what that is and don't care ! > > Yes, if I study real hard, I probably could pass the tests. But why > commit to memory, things that can easily be looked up. > > I used to be a Mainframe Systems Programmer - VM/VSE Operating Systems. > There is no equivalent RPT like tests for these, yet I made a good > career out of it - lasting 24+ years before the mainframe left the area. > Spent 19 years programming in Assembler and REXX (Similar to BASIC) > (with no formal training and/or testing). > > In 2000, before I got laid off, I was making $56,000 per year. Add 8 > years onto that, who is making that kind of money now ? > > Oh, by the way, I have and studied the PACE books and have committed a > lot to memory. > > Even my mentor, who IS an RPT, has never really been asked to explain > what RPT stands for and never really gotten any more business because of > it. In fact, he has been in long enough to have the previous name, > something like, Allied Tradesman? > > Another local ASSOCIATE is making a very good living installing > Pianodisc player systems in various pianos - including - uprights. > > So what - credibility - does being an RPT really bring - based on where > I am, I can only see it being bragging rights to the guild. > > Duaine > > William Monroe wrote: > > OK, I can accept that. But I think it's not unreasonable for those > > who can tune to think it is unreasonable to make it easier to get a > > qualification. I think if we continue to pursue the "least common > > denominator" idea, we quickly lose any and all credibility that RPT > > brings. > > > > Thanks for being straightforward. > > > > William R. Monroe. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081217/24dfaec6/attachment-0001.html>
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