[CAUT] pin drop

[Porritt, David]

Yes, this job is so often a second career.  My degree is in broadcasting and when I finally decided that was a bad fit I changed.  When I was young (I can still remember it!) this work didn't seem glamorous enough.  I was after a job with "T&T" (Tie & a Title).  I fear that young people still perceive this work in the same way I did.  When I became unhappy with the T&T at age 33 I made the move.

I'd think we really need to do what we can to raise the image of our profession.

dave


David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Susan Kline
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:01 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] pin drop

Hi, Dave

It's only confession time for people who feel like it, I'm sure.

Hope you'll enjoy your new-found and well-earned leisure.

I think that one problem faced by the profession over the next
decade or two is the idea that for the full-time positions, people
either do the whole thing, or they do nothing (retire completely.)
If we face a shortage of young people training up and getting
the experience they need to handle concert work, wouldn't it make
more sense to split the positions, letting today's full-time
people partially retire but do some concerts, while acting as coaches
to their younger replacements? (if any can be found ...)

I look around and don't see young tuners -- maybe it's just my
particular area? I put some of the blame on the student loans
(might better be called indentured servitude!) which leave bright
young people with a brand new diploma and a six-figure debt. Talk
about limiting their options! I suspect that all the non-traditional
interesting artisan-type jobs are suffering from an absence of
the young people who normally would be attracted to them, but now
have to service debt as far as the eye can see.

It was a dirty trick to pull on the young folks, mortgaging their
futures while giving lots of profit and perks to big banks.

On the other hand, a lot of those highly indebted young people
now graduating look around for jobs good enough to service that
debt, and come up empty. I could see a lot of those loans going
bad, and after going through bankruptcy, the young people might
then have a chance to explore and invent unusual occupations, in
their own time and their own ways. Maybe some will be piano techs
some day.

Just MHO ...

Susan Kline

>So it's confession time huh?  I'm retiring from a full time position 
>at SMU on February 1, 2010.  The job has not been posted yet, but 
>will be soon (it takes a while for HR to jump through the legal 
>hoops they need to jump.)  It is a great position working with some 
>great musicians who are also great human beings.  It's just time to 
>slow it down for me.
>
>dave (70)