The salary and working conditions need to be negotiated before the fact, not after, in consultation with the needs of the faculty and administration, in my view. If the administration sets the amount of money to be available inadequately to pay you what you think you're worth or with what can reasonably be accomplished in terms of faculty expectations then you shouldn't take the job. And if you do then it's your fault, not theirs. If they keep piling on with unreasonable demands or expectations then you haven't negotiated a good contract and need to renegotiate or at least communicate the issues. Only with an ongoing dialogue with all parties do you have a chance to explain the ramifications of choices that they make. If you live in fear of losing the job by rocking the boat or have accepted less than the job is worth to you because it seemed like better deal than what you had going at the time or you can't say no then you should reconsider just what the job is really worth to you now. The needs and budgets of any department are always changing, as we've seen recently, and only when negotiating from a position of strength, and not fear, can you hope to achieve what you want. The sad truth is that most universities pay far under the outside rate because there's always someone who will do the job for virtually nothing and because skill levels and associated fee schedules vary quite a bit. All institutions are interested in getting the best bang for the buck. That's just a fact, like it or not. They often have to make hard choices about quality versus covering their most basic needs with inadequate funding. At Stanford the problems are no less critical in terms of what needs to be done and the budgets available. There are different levels of administrators who make decisions. There's the university itself who makes calls about how to allocate monies between departments, there's the music department administrator who mediates between the department needs in conjunction with the faculty and the university at large, and then there's the faculty. We don't really have a voice with the university overall budget but we certainly talk to the music department administrators and faculty about what needs doing, what can be done for what price and our own recommendations. The music department administrator(s) then make decisions based on faculty requests (probably), overall budget considerations and our input. We (David Ilvedson and I) do offer input to all parties and they often listen to our recommendations. One difference is that we do not draw salaries. If they want something done and we do it they pay us accordingly. We don't charge market rate. They get a reasonable discount for our services considering the volume of work we do, but we're not drawing 25% of what we could get on the outside either. Personally, while there are advantages to drawing a salary and benefits, those benefit packages come at real cost (to both sides) and the remaining salary reflects those costs so you choose the way you want to approach it. With my business as busy as it is on the outside I find a contract arrangement works better for me. At least then there is never an issue with piling on or changing expectations. This is a slight digression but the point is that I find what works best is to be in consultation with all parties involved and not to get too territorial or isolated. The people who don't use the pianos don't offer any input on what to do with the pianos so I don't worry about them. The amount of overall money available is also out of my control so I don't worry about that either. What I communicate is what can be done for what price, what might have to be sacrificed if a lesser amount of money is available, and what the cost/benefits are short and long term. Then they decide. What I don't do is put myself in the position of being pressured to do more for less or sacrifice my own time because of the department's decision about how they will allocate money. If they don't want to spend it fine, I have other work elsewhere to do and when they do have it, I'm ready to do the work that's needed. In the meantime, I'm happy to help them prioritize if they want that input, and sometimes they do. In certain situations an approach such as Israel Stein takes might just be the right one in that he splits the contract with someone so that he reaps the benefits associated with an institutional setting but with enough time left to do outside work where his income is undoubtedly better. This offers the security and benefits that many long for but doesn't lower the ceiling of his earning potential to the degree that a full time position would. Again, this is a slight digression from the issue. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Tanner Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 11:14 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: Re: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments Oh, I completely disagree that the music administration clearly has much more vested in the care and maintenance of pianos than of photocopy machines. All of the faculty and students depend heavily on the photocopy machines. A significant percentage rarely touch a piano. And, if you'll check the budget, I'll wager they spend more on the maintenance of the photocopy machines than they do the pianos. Especially if you put it into perspective of cost of inventory. What I mean is this: cost of maintenance of photocopy machines is set by someone who understands what is involved in photocopier maintenace and what it costs to actually staff a team of skilled technicians. Cost of maintenance of university pianos is set by whatever amount is leftover after everything else is paid for. If you answer to music faculty, your salary and working conditions are going to naturally be treated as beneath that of those who have doctorate degrees, because that is how they learn to evaluate each other. Wouldn't you rather that your salary and working conditions were managed by someone who understands the concepts behind maintenance, what is actually necessary for the inventory and knows what the market is for your skill? I mean, I'm thinking in terms of what's best for the technician and inventory here, not just using other school's situations to keep costs down. Jeff ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> To: <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 1:37 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments > Perhaps we should clarify just who exactly we mean by the "music > administration" but I don't think photocopy maintenance is a particularly > good analogy. The music administration clearly has much more invested in > the care and maintenance of pianos than of photocopy machines. Plus it > seems like you're suggesting that we should be answerable to a service > agency even further removed from the music departments in terms of > assessing > their particular needs, feedback, priorities and, budget decisions which > invariably need to be made. Ultimately we are "answerable" to those who > use > our services and I would prefer a general dialogue which, I think, leads > to > better decision making than simply trying to stake out one's territory. > But > your situation might be different. > > David Love > www.davidlovepianos.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jeff > Tanner > Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 8:50 AM > To: caut at ptg.org > Subject: Re: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments > > David, > Should the photocopy maintenance also answer to the music administration? > Jeff > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> > To: <caut at ptg.org> > Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 4:49 PM > Subject: Re: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments > > >> Agreed, I think it depends on the music administration. Eliminating them >> from the loop seems pretty difficult. At Stanford I've always had very >> good >> experiences with the Music Administration and invariably they need to >> coordinate use and budget requirements anyway so it's hard to ignore >> them. >> My experience is that the farther away you get from the department >> involved >> the more bureaucratic it gets. >> >> David Love >> www.davidlovepianos.com >> >
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