Haunted House....and cleaning fees

[Greg Newell]

Bill,
    On the surface your comments seem palatable. If I, however, attempt to apply
them to my present experience of refinishing it would seem that you suggest that
I should be billing the customer for all those spraying efforts that resulted in
orange peel that I had to sand back down. I tell you no one would ever pay for
the time I have into that! I don't mind paying for education when my time is out
of line with the norms for a given job. Taking a little less money only prods me
to learn how to be more knowledgeable and efficient next time. I am talking
about extremes here. In the case of the cleaning, I believe 4 hours is too much.
I would not want to be on the receiving end of that bill if billed for the total
time involved. Just my 2 cents.

Greg

Bill Ballard wrote:

> At 6:03 PM -0400 9/7/01, Clyde Hollinger wrote:
> >Today I had to put new hinges on a piano bench and also a lid prop which it
> >apparently never had which would explain why the hinges were broken.
> >I did *not*
> >charge the normal hourly rate, because it took me longer than I
> >thought it should
> >have.
>
> I don't think it's a matter of labor rate (whether for free or tied
> to the standard tuning fee). It's the time which can be
> unpredictable. One would guess that Corey has some "sweat equity" in
> this introduction to "root-level" cleaning (if indeed this is the
> case. One might be wrong...)
>
> Irrespectigardless, even in seasoned hands, it's still alot of manual
> labor, and worse, of unpredictable quantities. I think (IMHO), if we
> could sort out all of our "beginner's try" time, all the goose-chase,
> head-scratch time, we'd probably find that the actual Net Time for
> this job was actually a bigger block of time than what we had
> originally tossed out when quickly running over the possibility of it
> at the outset.
>
> Many of us would be caught in this same bag, and not for lack of
> honesty, either. Ask me how long it takes to replace three cedar
> hammer shanks on an upright, especially just before I proceed to do
> it on your piano, and the hourly figure which comes out of my mouth
> is on the lean and hopeful side. Looking it up in a book is a very
> good basis. But if you happen not to, and your "guestimate " is
> sorely short of the real Net Time, you would not be alone. Every time
> I do it, it hurts.
>
> But I do think we should get paid for what we accomplish. Not
> included in this would be the "learning portion" of the overall (or
> Gross) Time. But as we learn to do this properly, there are ways to
> construct a total Net Time, which will serve as our billable hours.
> If our customer needs to be explained what went into the work, we've
> got our notes on the Net Time as the basis. They'll know they're
> getting solid work, and that our thumb is not on the scale.
>
> If it comes own to "cropping" the number of billable hours, maybe the
> fairest thing to offer is that we and the customer divided the amount
> in question, ie., "split the difference" between the real time and
> the overall time. Both kinds of time have to be acknowledged. (And
> don't you dare include the "thanks-for- the-milk-and-sugar-donut"
> time, they don't appreciate paying for the time you spend enjoying
> their good will.)
>
> Having an accurate way of accounting for our time is how professional
> billing develops. (And the sooner we can get pad for it. That is
> unless you're going to look it up in a book, which is actually a very
> good basis.
>
> Hey, we're professionals, we get to bill like this because we want
> to, right?..... actually, more likely, because we deserve it.
>
> But boy, it can be a surprise, how long it really takes to plug and
> rebore lid hinges, on site.
>
> Bill Ballard RPT
> NH Chapter, P.T.G.
>
> "Come on, a priest and a rabbi?! I think I've heard this one before"
>      ...........the Punjabi/Irish barkeep in "Keeping the Faith"
> +++++++++++++++++++++

--
Greg Newell
Greg's Piano Forté
12970 Harlon Ave.
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
216-226-3791
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net