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

[tune4u@earthlink.net]

Hear, hear! (Or in England: Heah, heah) Bravo!

Not everyone sees the tuner as a skilled artisan--partly because so many are
not. Me, I think the guy who comes to fix our washing machine is a skilled
artisan. And any honorable work is respectable, i.e., the worker should be
respected. "The laborer is worthy of his hire." Etc.

But small-minded people like to climb to the top of their nose and pretend
other people are small. I'm no great fan of Eleanor Roosevelt, but I do
greatly appreciate her famous statement: "Nobody can make you feel inferior
without your permission."

I say, if you haven't flabbergasted someone, your day is just not complete.

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Teplitski" <koko99@shaw.ca>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 10:38 PM
Subject: Re: My mistake.....my lesson....a cautionary tale


> Some years ago I was working at my bench when the phone rang.
> I said hello, and the first thing I heard was , is this the piano tuner
> ?
> I said yessss.  How much do you charge ? ? I told her what my basic
> rate was, and she proceeded to grill me about my qualifications, did I
> tune to concert pitch ,do I use an ETD, references, etc. etc. This right
>
> after the price quiry. Now she wanted to know what was the soonest
> I could come. , and do I tune on saturdays, or sundays ?  I became a
> little
> annoyed with her and decided maybe I didn't want to tune for her, but
> she
> lived very close to my place and nice not to have to travel 1/2 hr. or
> so to a job.,
> but I told her that she should make some calls in the yellow pages to
> find
> out what the rates were, etc. She thought that might be a good idea. We
> hung up and I returned to what I was doing before this wonderful person
> called
> to make my day. For the next 10 or 15 mins. I thought about her gall and
> decided
> that if she called back I would tell her to drop dead. Of course I
> wouldn't do that,
> but makes me feel better just thinking I'd like to. Didn't think she
> would have the
> nerve to call back, but we know different , don't we.? Phone rings, and
> I know it's her.
> Well I'm right. Just the sound of her voice annoyed me and after she
> asked me when
> I could come to tune, I told her that I would be afraid to tune for her
> , because I'm
> sure whatever I did wouldn't be good enough, so please call someone
> else. She was
> flabergasted, and I just hung up the phone. This happened a long time
> ago, but I still
> feel good about myself and I know I saved myself a lot of grief. Not
> sorry at all.
> I also wonder how many techs. shes gone thru. Ones that wouldn't go back
> and others
> she wouldn't have back. I'm often easy to beat up, but not this time.
>
> Carl / Winnipeg
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> paul kemp wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
> > Hello, Just a comment, if I feel that a customer or
> > potential customer is going to be a pain I reserve the
> > right to say I'm very busy, sorry (no). I can leave
> > also and say this isn't for me and gently excuse
> > myself.
> >
> > If a customer is calling and asks for a price and is
> > price shopping and they'll spend more time calling
> > around to save 10 dollars. I refer them to the yellow
> > pages. The service has to be mutually beneficial, as I
> > see it. Often if a customer is difficult on the phone,
> > they'll be more of a pain later working in their home-
> > why bother with them? Give it up to someone else who
> > enjoys that sort of thing. There are plenty of really
> > nice people who appreciate the service I offer and we
> > both get something out of it. I'd rather work for
> > them. Yours, Paul
> >
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