<html> <body> Hi Wim, OK, I have one thing to offer you regarding "thick skin." Steve Covey's book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is extremely helpful. I actually did teach a class based on this book a couple years back at a National seminar, habits adapted for piano techs, of course. One of the ways this book was helpful to me was that I learned to set my own internal "barometer" in terms of my work and skill level, i.e., set my own goals, values, and system of evaluation. Of course, we always rely on external input (or else we get into REAL trouble!), but bear in mind that YOU determine the course of your work. Seek to understand the other guy before you seek to be understood Habit #5, I think), but also know yourself well enough to remain unshaken when your work is criticized. Also, I think about what one of my friends (a professional violinist) told me about how there is no secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everybody (my own personal challenge!). Anyway - there's my little pep talk for you! Cheers, Mary At 10:24 AM 3/8/2005 -0500, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>In a message dated 3/7/05 6:17:39 P.M. Central Standard Time, hgreeley@stanford.edu writes: <dl> <dd>Concert work is a crap shoot, no matter how good/bad one might individually be as a technician.  You/one/_anyone_ is only as good as your/their last tuning...period.  Further, survival is not at all necessarily reserved for the most fit.  There is a very simple bottom line which must be addressed before getting too deep into concert work (beyond the point of it being a relatively occasional service for the local MTA/whatever); and, that is, just how thick is your/anyone's skin?  Doing "real" concert work is brutal...not at all the way it is seemingly idealized by so many.  One either learns to live with the inevitable slings and arrows, or, wisely, one chooses to leave the field to those whose egos either need and/or can withstand the onslaught. </dl>Horace   Thank you for your advice. This is the one area of concert work that I need to develop. (creating a thick skin). As far as I know,  this is not a class I have not seen offered at any convention. <img src="cid:5.2.1.1.2.20050309085152.01531ba8@mail.utexas.edu.0"= alt="672582.jpg">   Wim </blockquote></body> </html>