[pianotech] crazy customer

[David Boyce]

That is a wisely sympathetic view, Will, and a nice one. It's horrible 
to think of people losing everything, as even some list members did (and 
Paul's family, as he says).

But Paul still can't win!  The choices were, I think: 1) Tune the piano 
including pitch raise and all extra work, for the price the customer 
wanted, or 2) Walk away.

To have chosen option 1) would still, I think, have been a no-win 
option, because the people WERE unreasonable, and there's nothing to say 
that would not have bad-mouthed Paul to others anyway. "That shyster was 
gonna overcharge us, but we stuck to our guns. He'd only done it the 
year before anyway!"  The whole scenario would have been 
unprofessional.  I think if one was feeling suffiently charitable, and 
the people had been nice, and were genuinely distressed, one might have 
offered Option 3), do the whole job for nothing as a charitable 
donation.  But the folks WERE'NT nice, and we can only work for nothing 
in exceptional cases!

How could the people have been won round, when they weren't listening 
and weren't reasonable?  I don't think it would have been possible. So 
that only leaves option 2), really.

But it's certainly good to try and understand the customer's emotional 
state.  I remember blithely teeling a lady, more than 20 years ago, that 
her keytops weren't ivory. She wasn't pleased!  They weren't ivory, and 
the subject had come up. But I could have done it more tactfully.

Best regards,

David.
www.davidboyce.co.uk

> The customer was wrong, and Paul did the right thing in this 
> situation, but I am going to be a bit charitable in my thinking 
> towards this customer.  Like so many, they lost everything in the 
> tornado and are still living in a motel room a year later.  People 
> handle stress differently.  Some people can handle the big stuff well, 
> but the cracks show in small places.  I suspect their mental and 
> emotional distress plate is still very full at this point.  It may 
> well be that the $88 was all they could afford at this time, and this 
> "new" piano in a motel room home was to be a little ray of sunshine 
> that turns out to have slipped behind the clouds.  I feel compassion 
> for them.
>
> Will Truitt

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