<HTML>In a message dated 2/5/02 12:49:11 PM !!!First Boot!!!, dkvander@joplin.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I don't have time to work out aony of the Guidelines formulas for these situations.  I am concentrating on my private customers, who pay more and for the most part keep their pianos in better regulation etc.  Plus, with my private customers, there are less pitch raises necessary, and I don't have to do the pitch corrections for free. I get no coffee breaks, unless I do it on my own time and pay for it myself.  Currently the only office work I do is to keep track of the work I do and send bills.  I have in the past spent lots of time writing detailed reports about every piano, along with recommendations for repairs and regulation, but since my reports get ignored (and I don't get paid for the time) I stopped doing this a while back. Just my two cents. David Vanderhoofven </BLOCKQUOTE> David There is a trade off between being self employed and working full time for a university, (or a store). While you don't have time for "coffee break," so to speak, after you get done with a tuning, for which get paid a lot, you can take the time because the time is your own. What you do with it is your decision. You can work, or you can take a break. Working for a university does give you the time to take a coffee break. But I get paid the same whether I tune one piano and do 7 hours of paper work, or if I tune 10 pianos and no paper work. That, to me, is sometimes the "downside" of working for a university. I don't see the immediate return for the work I do. As far as the recommendations are concerned, I wouldn't give up on them so easily. Perhaps you shouldn't spend as much time as you once did, but you should make them, even if they are in person, at the time of the tuning. When I was working in St. Louis, on the bottom of my tuning ticket there was space to briefly write down repairs or regulations which I recommended, including approximate costs. I got several calls about those, even as much as two years later. So don't give up on the idea. It will pay off in the future. Wim </HTML>