My take, If you feel a job causes you more work (physical, mental or otherwise) and you feel inclined to charge more, do so. No one forces clients to use any one of us and if we have a distaste for a particular job, we are free to decide whether to take it or not or, whether to charge more or not. In a case like that, I would offer to my client that they may be able to find someone to do it for less, but that is my fee. Charging more, purposefully, does not equate to gouging. Charging more arbitrarily does. Wim, getting sore playing racqutball is totally unrelated to work. There are those that suggest that tuning a square actually is. William R Monroe William I respect your opinion on this, but I totally disagree. We need to figure out what we charge per hour, and as professionals, we need to charge that fee for the work we do, regardless of what kind of work it is, or how difficult it is, mentally or physically. When someone has a bad back, or sore arms, it doesn't make any difference how that back or arm was injured. A sore back is a sore back. It could have been injured stringing, or picking up a plate, or playing softball or racquet ball. The bottom line is, it's not the customers problem, and she/he should not have to pay for it. WIm -----Original Message----- From: William R. Monroe <bill at a440piano.net> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Wed, Jun 30, 2010 2:36 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] business My take, If you feel a job causes you more work (physical, mental or otherwise) and you feel inclined to charge more, do so. No one forces clients to use any one of us and if we have a distaste for a particular job, we are free to decide whether to take it or not or, whether to charge more or not. In a case like that, I would offer to my client that they may be able to find someone to do it for less, but that is my fee. Charging more, purposefully, does not equate to gouging. Charging more arbitrarily does. Wim, getting sore playing racqutball is totally unrelated to work. There are those that suggest that tuning a square actually is. William R Monroe William R. Monroe, RPT A440-William R Monroe Piano Services, Inc. 314 E. Church St. Belleville, WI 53508 608-215-3250 www.a440piano.net On Jun 30, 2010, at 9:40 AM, tnrwim at aol.com wrote: YES! Even squares, for a nominal extra fee to pay for my aching back after ward! I'm sorry, Mike, but this, in my opinion, is not ethical. It's not your customer's fault that you have a bad back. That's your problem. Either put up with it, or don't accept the work. On occasion, after playing a hard couple of rounds of racquet ball, my shoulder aches so much I can hardly lift my arm above my shoulder. But I don't charge my customer extra because of that. You can charge your customer extra because it takes longer to tune the piano because the pins are in the back and all the other unusual techniques you have to use to tune the thing. But you should not charge extra because it hurts your back. Just my 2 cents worth. Wim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100701/deda3e05/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC