To the list: Well, we have drifted into politics, but so be it for the moment. I'll try not to slash anybody's tires or threaten family pets with my comments. J I, for one, find Ric's comments intelligent and thoughtful. I don't think he has an axe to grind here or even takes any pleasure in making comments about America that others find negative. I would hope that others would really listen to what he has to say and give it some thought, rather than enter into Shoot the Messenger Mode as some have. It is my observation that Americans tend to have a somewhat myopic and self-centered view of themselves, and they expect the world to see them through their eyes rather than their own. And Americans tend to forget that the needs and concerns of other nations and cultures are often different than ours, and give them too little consideration. That they are different from ours does not make them wrong, or us wrong. We live in times that are so politically fragmented and combative that we have largely stopped truly listening to each other, and we mistake screaming and accusing each other for communication. Moving forward requires that we actually listen to one another and seriously consider the merits of another's point of view. Democratic societies disintegrate when this willingness to listen ceases. Recently, I heard a comment that I found very profound: "The lifeblood of democracy is compromise. Without it, the only thing that remains is force." I ask my readers to give that some thought. Every day of our lives is filled with compromise, and there is good compromise and bad compromise. Anyone who has been married or has children knows the word well. Like others, I have customers in gated communities. They are good people, bad people, and everything in between; just like the rest of the world. And the reasons they have for choosing to live in these places are varied. Mr. Vetter makes the point that "They are people trying to escape the asylum we call our modern culture". Which speaks to Ric's point that "where pulling away from each other trying to find an illusionary little safe house village where they can attempt to close the outside world off. They will start (already have in not a few cases) to make their own rules for society, their own mini governments and their own little legal, police and defense systems.... a tendency that will continue. Its quite sad to see Americans finding more and more ways of not having more to do with each other rather than building inter community relations, ties... keeping the glue that has defined what an "American" is fresh and holding strong. " Each of us has the right to make the choice of where we live and the reasons why we live there. Some of us choose to move to the inner city to be an engaged citizen trying to resurrect communities with deep problems. Others move to gated communities and disengage from that part of our society that they see as failing, and have essentially abandoned the rest of the society, choosing to server their self interest only, and abandoning the problems of the larger culture. This is particularly unfortunate in that these successful people are able to live in these communities because they are intelligent and capable. Without their participation in the larger society, we lack the benefit of these talents, and the society is poorer for that. So there is a cost to the continued health of our society when more and more people opt out. If this kind of fragmentation continues, we become a society of US and THEM. Indeed, we already are becoming just that. It is an indisputable statistical fact that the rich are getting richer, and everybody else is getting poorer - more and more wealth is concentrating in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and that has accelerated during this great economic crisis that we still find ourselves in. Who amongst us piano technicians does not feel assaulted by these economic changes? It is not to our benefit when fewer and fewer people feel they can afford our services. Will Truitt From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Vetter Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 9:14 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Gated communities Oh my! Where to start? Rich, white, conservatives, in gated conservatives. What then are rich, black, liberals who live in gated communities along side the rich whites?They are people who are trying to escape the assylum we call our modren culture. We are not victims of laissez faire policies. We, the entire society, are victictims of "diversity at all cost" and political correctness run rampant. We are told to celebrate diversity and accept the most vile and immoral lifestyles as "just different'' and their values as valid as our own. Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe (see news articals today) are really nice people that should be understood in their own cultural context. That is B.S. If theyrich can afford their lifestyle, good for them. They are the people who frequently purchase, or donate money for expensive things (like pianos). Tell me about the next time you service a fine Bechstein or Bosey in the projects. Sincerely, Chuck Vetter ----- Original Message ----- From: Leslie Bartlett <mailto:l-bartlett at sbcglobal.net> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 5:20 PM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Gated communities Sorry, it seems to me a legitimate concern to people who work in metropolitan areas where such communities proliferate.. les bartlett _____ From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of G Cousins Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 9:04 AM To: pianotech Subject: Re: [pianotech] Gated communities Seriously Ric, How do you really feel? A PC (focused) society may just be one possible reason. Maybe move somewhere that's better. Any suggestions? (on this planet) IMHO Greatest country on earth, bar NONE! Gerald P. Cousins, RPT and Citizen of The Unites States of America PS Perhaps this thread could (should) move to another BB that caters to such topics. --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: ricb at pianostemmer.no To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:55:11 +0100 Subject: Re: [pianotech] Gated communities These things are an attest to a society where pulling away from each other trying to find an illusionary little safe house village where they can attempt to close the outside world off. They will start (already have in not a few cases) to make their own rules for society, their own mini governments and their own little legal, police and defense systems.... a tendency that will continue. Its quite sad to see Americans finding more and more ways of not having more to do with each other rather then building inter community relations, ties... keeping the glue that has defined what an "American" is fresh and holding strong. Typically a refuge for the rather rich, and rather white conservatives... when the rest of the US gets poor enough... these walls and the people hiding inside will get ripped apart by an angry mob the likes of which the US has yet to encounter and evidently is incapable of yet comprehending. I suppose one good thing will come out of the self imposed destruction that awaits the US.... it will show the world once and for all how flawed unbridled laissez faire politics is.. how fated any society becomes in such predictable fashion that treads that path. It leads ironically enough towards a breaking up of a society into more and more separate social entities eventually disintegrating into a short lived period of near anarchical condition... followed by a long period of some form or another of localized anything but democratic authoritarian mini states in which the exact freedoms so fanatically sought by those who originally pushed the country down that road are near totally lacking.... You might as well have been born in 14th century central Europe.... What they do to your personal business practices at present is like totally unimportant :) RicB --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: ricb at pianostemmer.no To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:57:39 +0100 Subject: Re: [pianotech] Gated communities List.. sorry that went to the list... it was meant to be a private note. Haven't used this list much lately and forget how easily it is to punch the send button a second to soon. Didnt mean to bring politics onto the list forum. Cheers RicB --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: da88ve at gmail.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:50:23 -0700 Subject: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for A client called and said her daughter hears several buzzing notes. I just tuned it a few weeks ago and didn't hear any buzzing. But I go to check it out. Client wasn't home -- forgot I was coming. Fortunately there was a housekeeper who let me in. I play up and down the scale, and sure enough, there's some buzzing underneath somewhere. I open the bottom panel and see two small, rusty woodscrews lodged between the plate and the bottom board, one of them against the soundboard. I remove them, and, "Presto!" -- no more buzzing. (Why couldn't they have buzzed when I was tuning a few weeks ago?) Suddenly client shows up (was walking the dogs). I show her the screws, tell her there's no more buzzing, and she says, "Oh, thank you soooo much!" in a tone that's so grateful I can tell she thinks I came to remove the problem as a huge gratis favor, and that certainly I don't intend to charge anything. (When they say, "Do I owe you anything?" then you KNOW you'd better say, "No, that's OK -- I was in the neighborhood" or something similar.) I spent a half-hour driving, two minutes finding the problem, ten minutes waiting around for the client, and another half-hour back to the shop -- 1 1/4 hours for no compensation. Sometimes you just get the "vibe" from the client that they think any buzz, noise, tinnyness, or other quirk that shows up within, say, a month after you tuned it, is your fault, since it wasn't doing that before you tuned it, and therefore must've been caused by your "tuning" and you should come fix it for free. Oh sure, you can say, "I have a $xx minimum billing for service calls," but then you lose the customer and any referrals from them. I've even done 12 hours' extra labor on a large reconditioning job to get rid of problems they implied were my fault, even though these things were not in the job estimate, but from their tone of voice and attitude you can tell that it's either fix everything for free or get into a big argument, much unpleasantness, and maybe even a lawsuit. But of course you can't deduct the value of your time on your tax return, since the IRS doesn't see your time as being worth anything. --David Nereson, RPT --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: tompiano at bellsouth.net To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:14:57 -0500 Subject: Re: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for No you can't deduct that from your taxes, but those are the type of situations which keeps you in business. It's call good old customer service, going the extra mile to keep someone happy. Something which is lacking in many business rules books these days. Tom Servinsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Nereson" <da88ve at gmail.com> To: <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 6:50 AM Subject: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for > A client called and said her daughter hears several buzzing notes. I > just tuned it a few weeks ago and didn't hear any buzzing. But I go to > check it out. Client wasn't home -- forgot I was coming. Fortunately > there was a housekeeper who let me in. I play up and down the scale, and > sure enough, there's some buzzing underneath somewhere. I open the bottom > panel and see two small, rusty woodscrews lodged between the plate and the > bottom board, one of them against the soundboard. I remove them, and, > "Presto!" -- no more buzzing. (Why couldn't they have buzzed when I was > tuning a few weeks ago?) > Suddenly client shows up (was walking the dogs). I show her the > screws, tell her there's no more buzzing, and she says, "Oh, thank you > soooo much!" in a tone that's so grateful I can tell she thinks I came to > remove the problem as a huge gratis favor, and that certainly I don't > intend to charge anything. (When they say, "Do I owe you anything?" then > you KNOW you'd better say, "No, that's OK -- I was in the neighborhood" or > something similar.) > I spent a half-hour driving, two minutes finding the problem, ten > minutes waiting around for the client, and another half-hour back to the > shop -- 1 1/4 hours for no compensation. Sometimes you just get the "vibe" > from the client that they think any buzz, noise, tinnyness, or other quirk > that shows up within, say, a month after you tuned it, is your fault, > since it wasn't doing that before you tuned it, and therefore must've been > caused by your "tuning" and you should come fix it for free. > Oh sure, you can say, "I have a $xx minimum billing for service calls," > but then you lose the customer and any referrals from them. > I've even done 12 hours' extra labor on a large reconditioning job to > get rid of problems they implied were my fault, even though these things > were not in the job estimate, but from their tone of voice and attitude > you can tell that it's either fix everything for free or get into a big > argument, much unpleasantness, and maybe even a lawsuit. > But of course you can't deduct the value of your time on your tax > return, since the IRS doesn't see your time as being worth anything. > --David Nereson, RPT --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: surfdog at metrocast.net To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:45:30 -0500 Subject: Re: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for Hi David: You are still the master of your destiny, so the choice is entirely yours whether or not to charge for this visit. Most of the time I would, for the kind of reasons you give. Sometimes I don't charge my regular, good, longtime customers - but they always offer to compensate me because they do place a value on my time. My choice. One way around this is to make clear to the customer before the visit that there will likely be a service charge if the cause of the buzzing is unrelated to anything you did when you were there to perform your services. If I find my missing tool inside the piano, obviously I would not charge them. It is important to remember that one of the ways our customers get their cues on how much value to place on OUR time from US. The irony is that if we give away too much or charge too little, then too many people will correspondingly place little value to it. That is obviously the opposite reaction to what we would hope for from our customers. If the customer needs the explanation you just gave to us as to your investment of time and loss of work time that could be compensated elsewhere, give it to her and unapologetically, politely, and with a friendly smile on your face, HAND HER THE BILL. As for myself, I choose not to work for people who want me to work for free. My policy where there is a honest dispute is to give a little but not a lot. Giving away 12 hours labor free for work that you did not contract for falls in that category of giving away a lot. If you feel bullied by the customer, it is because you allowed yourself to be bullied. Losing that customer is no great loss because you don't want that kind of customer. And you likely will not retain them as a customer after you have given everything away, because they know they have worked you and so don't wish to face their victim. The vast majority of our customers are nice, honest, and fair people whom it is a pleasure to work for. But not everyone is, and we have to say no on occasion. And we are the only person who can make that choice to say no. Best wishes, Will Truitt -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of David Nereson Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 6:50 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for A client called and said her daughter hears several buzzing notes. I just tuned it a few weeks ago and didn't hear any buzzing. But I go to check it out. Client wasn't home -- forgot I was coming. Fortunately there was a housekeeper who let me in. I play up and down the scale, and sure enough, there's some buzzing underneath somewhere. I open the bottom panel and see two small, rusty woodscrews lodged between the plate and the bottom board, one of them against the soundboard. I remove them, and, "Presto!" -- no more buzzing. (Why couldn't they have buzzed when I was tuning a few weeks ago?) Suddenly client shows up (was walking the dogs). I show her the screws, tell her there's no more buzzing, and she says, "Oh, thank you soooo much!" in a tone that's so grateful I can tell she thinks I came to remove the problem as a huge gratis favor, and that certainly I don't intend to charge anything. (When they say, "Do I owe you anything?" then you KNOW you'd better say, "No, that's OK -- I was in the neighborhood" or something similar.) I spent a half-hour driving, two minutes finding the problem, ten minutes waiting around for the client, and another half-hour back to the shop -- 1 1/4 hours for no compensation. Sometimes you just get the "vibe" from the client that they think any buzz, noise, tinnyness, or other quirk that shows up within, say, a month after you tuned it, is your fault, since it wasn't doing that before you tuned it, and therefore must've been caused by your "tuning" and you should come fix it for free. Oh sure, you can say, "I have a $xx minimum billing for service calls," but then you lose the customer and any referrals from them. I've even done 12 hours' extra labor on a large reconditioning job to get rid of problems they implied were my fault, even though these things were not in the job estimate, but from their tone of voice and attitude you can tell that it's either fix everything for free or get into a big argument, much unpleasantness, and maybe even a lawsuit. But of course you can't deduct the value of your time on your tax return, since the IRS doesn't see your time as being worth anything. --David Nereson, RPT --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: mkurta1 at comcast.net To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:33:38 -0600 Subject: Re: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for David, I can see both sides of that question-to charge or not to charge? My thought is that the customer will remember how you handled their callback far longer than the original tuning you did, good or bad. Positive public relations are hard to come by, and is the stuff that makes you a hero in their eyes. Here is an opportunity to gain a chunk, and as you pointed out, they will tell others. By the same token there is a line over which one is taken advantage of and this judgement should be made on a case by case basis. We should not be considered doormats. However in my experience those times are really rare. We choose to be members of a SERVICE industry, and how we handle customer concerns is up to us. Have you noticed how we are now greeted in stores lately, and how friendly those folks are? Also it seems much easier to return an item nowadays from just awhile ago. This looks like a trend and it might be worthwhile for us to be aware of it and pay attention to our public relations too. Mike Kurta, RPT Chicago chapter --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: AlliedPianoCraft at hotmail.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:47:31 -0500 Subject: Re: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for William, Mike, great thoughtful answers. David............If you felt abused, you probably were. Al -------------------------------------------------- From: "Mike Kurta" <mkurta1 at comcast.net> Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 8:33 AM To: <pianotech at ptg.org> Subject: Re: [pianotech] call-backs you can't charge for > David, I can see both sides of that question-to charge or not to > charge? My thought is that the customer will remember how you handled > their callback far longer than the original tuning you did, good or bad. > Positive public relations are hard to come by, and is the stuff that makes > you a hero in their eyes. Here is an opportunity to gain a chunk, and as > you pointed out, they will tell others. > By the same token there is a line over which one is taken advantage of > and this judgement should be made on a case by case basis. We should not > be considered doormats. However in my experience those times are really > rare. We choose to be members of a SERVICE industry, and how we handle > customer concerns is up to us. > Have you noticed how we are now greeted in stores lately, and how > friendly those folks are? Also it seems much easier to return an item > nowadays from just awhile ago. This looks like a trend and it might be > worthwhile for us to be aware of it and pay attention to our public > relations too. > Mike Kurta, RPT > Chicago chapter > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091122/526f972e/attachment-0001.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC