Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:37:56 -0500 Eric Wolfley wrote: >State systems don’t recognize merit, they go mainly on job descriptions and are supposed to align job >responsibilities with salary levels. If your job description says you are a mechanic that works on pianos, >they will equate your position and salary to the state car-pool mechanic. If your job description says you direct >and manage budgets and inventories, advise and consult with faculty, supervise student help, prepare >instruments for visiting artists, etc, etc, they’ll be comparing you to supervisory or managerial positions. >In the past you’ve said that you are the only piano technician in the state system…you’ve got to convince >them to look at other state institutions for comparisons. That’s what they did here for me. In the end, they >had to create a new position in which to put me because I didn’t fit anywhere else. Eric, This is an interesting perspective, which perhaps has been neglected in the current discussion, and may have broader implications. Perhaps we have been barking up the wrong tree all along, thinking that by proving ever higher-level piano skills - whether through testing or curriculum certification - we may someday convince "management" that we are worthy of a professional-level compensation. Perhaps the CAUT accreditation - whatever form it takes - needs to stress management skills in order to position the job description in a higher paying classification. As you imply, the most skilled mechanic is still just a mechanic... There are many precedents where practitioners repositioned themselves into higher job descriptions by augmenting the skill set associated with their profession. The classic example would be nurses who in the early part of the 20th century raised their job description from bedpan carriers and bandage changers to direct deliverers of health care - by developing a science-based curriculum. Just about any other "profession" raised itself to its present status by a similar expansion of its skill set beyond the craft itself. Fact is, we piano people are still working and presenting ourselves the same way as just about all other professions did in the 19th century... So perhaps the CAUT credential needs to stress ancillary skills - such as management related to pianos - that would push us above being mere mechanics. Because as long as we try to be only the best possible piano technicians that we can be - well, great piano technicians are still just very specialized mechanics... From what Eric writes above, perhaps we need to be thinking beyond that... Just food for thought... Israel Stein -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: caut-request at ptg.org Subject: caut Digest, Vol 1104, Issue 35 Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:39:14 +0000 Size: 59723 Url: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20071113/2ec54931/attachment-0001.mht
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