Van, Cars As Tools

[John Musselwhite]

At 08:33 PM 5/30/98 -0400, Zen wrote:

>I might add here that having a presentable, reliable car is part of the
>"Professional Image" equation.  About 5 years ago I picked up a 4-year-old
>Toyota Camry, got all of the bugs worked out of it, and have been carefully
>maintaining it since.  Furthermore, I try to keep it reasonably clean.
>
>Perhaps I am making this up, but I swear my customers started taking me and
>my work more seriously when I turned up in the Camry instead of the clunker
>I had been driving.  Now it is obvious that it is not so new, but what is

I have experienced the same thing.  When I first started tuning I was
driving a Honda Civic which was nice, but rather non-descript. A couple of
years later I had the opportunity to lease an almost brand-new Volvo
station wagon, which I drove for 10 years until it started to look a little
ratty. As soon as I started driving the Volvo wagon a lot of my customers
wanted to talk about Volvos (Volvo owners are rather dedicated), and new
customers often commented on the vehicle and ultimately became good
customers.  When I retired it to casual use and started driving a Dodge
Caravan a lot of them asked me why I wasn't driving a Volvo anymore, so I
know it had some kind of impact.

>also obvious is that it is well-maintained.  It is a tool, just like my
>other tools, all of which are kept clean and functional.  They can see for
>themselves that my tools must work first time every time if I am to get the
>clean [ideal] results with a minimum of fuss.  In the case of the car, it
>has to get me to where I am going as planned.

And it should get you there in some kind of style as well, although I think
it's best not to be too fancy. My sister in Ottawa tells me that HER piano
tuner drives a Porsche, but personally I'd be uncomfortable driving up to a
middle-class home where a family is struggling to give their kids a musical
education and taking money from them to pay for my Porsche. Mind you, you
could always keep a "beater" as a spare car for those calls... B-})

>I often tell my customers that the piano is a cross between a pet and a car

I saw one recently that was more like a Chia-Pet. The lady thought that
filling the inside of her grand with plants would raise the humidity and be
good for it as well as be aesthetically pleasing. She said the strings were
sort-of rusty before she did that, and so far nothing was growing in the
dust under the soundboard so she thought it wouldn't hurt. At this point in
that piano's life I don't think it really matters.

>.. more on that later, but only if others are interested.

Well, I am... B-})

		John



John Musselwhite, RPT  
Calgary, Alberta Canada 
musselj@cadvision.com