I have been the sole technician at the University of New Mexico for over ten years now. We have about 70 pianos. I work on a contract basis, with about 300 - 400 hours a year budgeted (and there is never any more available). This works out to about 8 hours a day for 70 pianos, even worse than your situation. I have been lobbying ever since I got there for more hours, and hope that now (working on my fifth chairman) I will finally succeed in making it a half time position - still not really ideal, but an immense improvement. The chair promises that this is his "top priority" and is "in process now." I'm not holding my breath, but I have told him I' "outahere" as of May unless the process is complete by then. I think one fulltime technician per 60 to 70 pianos is a good benchmark to try for, but I'm afraid I believe that our situations are more typical of your everyday state university music department. Small colleges may even be worse. Originally I tried to "patch holes" to the extent that the faculty would not notice how bad things were getting. More recently I have decided that that was a bad policy, and so I have begun to let things slide noticeably - not do the half hour special regulate/lube/voice the high spots for the critical faculty. It's the critical faculty who need to be lobbying for more money/time for the technician. If they are happy, all the technician's bellyaching does is give him/her a reputation as a complainer. Good luck! Fred Sturm Albuquerque
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