My mistake.....my lesson....a cautionary tale

[Avery Todd]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!

Avery

At 08:07 PM 01/13/03 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>     David, don't go all wobbly on us now, buddy. You just got an overly 
> sensitive "artist" , and by the way, I agree perfectly with Wim's 
> assessment, and I'm sure the piano sounded just wonderful. If they 
> wouldn't let you work with the performer to bring it back to something 
> that would have made them happy, then they're just "nuts", and I wouldn't 
> worry about it too much.
>     I recently got a service order to set up a new Disklavier C2 in North 
> Scottsdale. (Think Beverly Hills). It seems that these people demanded 
> that the piano be delivered in the box. They just didn't want any piano 
> that had been on the floor, and they didn't want to come down to the shop 
> and watch it being uncrated, I guess. So I go up there, it's about an 
> hour drive, and the lady of the house comes out to greet me, from the 
> garage. She asks me if I can take off my shoes in the garage, and I say 
> "of course". She's not oriental, but if she wants me to leave my shoes in 
> the garage, no problem. When I walk into the house, it's all tile. I'm 
> starting to think; "what, I'm going to get her tile dirty?"
>     I get to the piano, and go to put my tool cases down on the tile, and 
> she says, "You can't put your cases on my floor, I don't know where 
> they've been."  (OOhhh, starting to get scary here, says I. )  I also 
> have a nice table that I use to go over the regulation on, and I guess 
> the rubber casters are not Kosher either.
>     I usually have a cut down moving pad that I carry with me, but today, 
> I'm driving my Tacoma truck, so she finds some construction paper and I 
> put that down. I took the case parts off the piano, and go to put them on 
> the carpet in the sunken lower living room, and she says; "Don't put that 
> there, you'll leave dents in the carpet."  Well, at least I don't have to 
> worry about her coming at me with an ax, she'd get blood everywhere!
>     So, finally we have it all worked out, I'm going over the action 
> regulation, pitch raising, seating strings, doing software updates, 
> calibrating the disklavier,,,,etc. etc. etc.
>     I finally get all done, I just want to go over the tuning once more, 
> and do a little voicing; it's a lively room, what with all that tile and 
> all those windows, but you know, after an hour drive and 3 1/2 hours of 
> working on her piano, I've got to get rid of some of that coffee that I 
> had on the way to the job. So I ask her, "May I please use a restroom?"
>     I can tell you, I've never felt such a sense of shock as when she 
> told me; "No, because then I would have to clean it, there's a 
> construction site about seven or eight lots down, and I think that I saw 
> one of those portable bathrooms down there." So I said, never mind, I'll 
> be done here in a couple of minutes. Finished a quick final tuning and 
> got the heck outta there. I would have been glad to have voiced it, but 
> you know, if you're that rude, too bad.
>
>     I realize your experience was totally different, and that you're 
> taking it as a personal affront to your abilities, but from what I've 
> read, you seem to have more than enough confidence and knowledge to 
> succeed in whatever you do. Hey, we deal with people all the time, some 
> people go through a lot of techs mostly because they can't find anyone 
> who can put up with them.
>
>     I hesitate to put my name to this, but I am
>     Kevin E. Ramsey
>