No Subject

[J Patrick Draine]

Tom wrote:

>I got a call from a lady this week.  She had a 1923 Wurlitzer player piano. 
>She informed me that the piano needed new bridle straps, and that many of the
>hammer butt springs were not in place,but she wanted to do the work herself
>and asked me if I would sell her some bridle straps, and if there was a tool
>she could buy to get the butt springs back in place.  Also, there were also
>several keys that she could not depress or play, and needed someone to fix
>them for her.  So I made an appointment to come out and fix the "frozen"
>keys.

snip

>   So I decided to sell her a set of bridle straps, and showed
>her how to go about removing the old bridle straps and install a new set of
>cork-tipped bridle straps.  I charged her for the work I had done and for the
>set of bridle straps and went home.  (She had also, by the way, replaced the
>old felt front key rail punchings with new felt purchased at a fabric store,
>cutting them into circles and punching holes in them herself!  Quite the
>self-starter.)
>
>My question regards the ethics of this situation.  Having only been in the
>newsgroup about 3 months now, I have come to respect the opinions of so many
>of you---what is your collective take on this situation?  Should I have
>refused to supply her with the bridle straps?

Your ethics are fine; perhaps it's the business sense of the 
transaction that merits discussion. Did you charge enough? If your 
whole day was full of these appointments, could you survive? Did you 
have a reasonable markup on the parts (note that Apsco presumes 100% 
markup).

I imagine the Maytag man would be willing to sell me washing machine 
parts, but I'd have to pay $35-40 for the "service fee" of him 
walking in the door, and $50 for a diagnosis/estimate (that's what 
happened 2 years ago; the diagnosis was buy a new one -- he threw in 
a $30 rebate coupon toward a new Maytag purchase).

I hope you charged her at least at minimum service fee, perhaps 
equivalent to one hour of your *skilled* labor rate.
Patrick Draine, RPT