<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2716.2200" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <DIV>This talk of wearing a suit and tie to raise the level of our professionalism reminds me of the chimney sweeps who wear a Tux to show that it is a noble profession.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>dave *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 6/22/02 at 9:01 AM Piannaman@AOL.COM wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid">The beauty of our profession and of being self-employed is that we get to call our own shots when it comes to personal choices like clothing(I'm sure we'll talk about the bad parts of being your own boss next April...-).  As long as you don't offend the customer by being so untidy and unwashed that they mistake you for a homeless beggar, I don't see the vast majority of piano owners out there having an issue with what their piano tech wears.  It seems like people are so mystified and enthralled by what we do, that we could do our work in thongs without offending.  If you do that, though, watch out where you point the heat gun, and be careful when doing string work! Dave Stahl In a message dated 6/21/02 8:24:43 PM Pacific Daylight Time, sckline@attbi.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" TYPE="CITE"> At 11:36 AM 6/22/2002 +1000, Scott wrote: >But it does make it into a tax deductible shirt! >And there i was thinking it would look MORE professional to have a >uniform. I'd feel like a complete doofus wearing (an extra-large) shop uniform with "Susan" embroidered above the left pocket. Maybe I could do that on Halloween! This style of couture belongs almost always to male professions. Actually, I think that the named uniform tends to suggest people working as employees of a company in groups. Someone in an auto shop wears a uniform saying "Johnnie" because a car owner calling in and wanting to find out what has been done to his car will be asked which mechanic is working on it. Or, if someone comes in a van to repair the furnace, and then it emits black smoke, whoever is fielding complaints will ask, "which of our guys came out?" For people who are self-employed, and often work alone, the embroidered name doesn't seem to fit. It also does have a blue-collar feeling. In piano work we're not quite blue or white collar. We defy categories. Many of us have advanced degrees. Lots of us are "retreads". I think that by daring to freelance the way we do, just ignoring and forgetting about all those "benefits" which the rest of the world think they can't live without, we've earned the right to invent our own styles. Clean, reasonably neat, and comfortable has always worked for me, but I don't think of clothing as showing professionalism. I believe that customers perceive professionalism initially from what I say and later on from what I do, and from how I explain what I'm doing. The biggest boost to a customer's sense that I'm professional comes when I've fixed something that no one else fixed, especially if they tried and failed to fix it. And always, in the background, is musicianship. You don't have to wear that, or launder it, or even think about it much. But what better to take into a piano customer's home? Susan </BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML> <PRE> _____________________________ David M. Porritt dporritt@mail.smu.edu Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 _____________________________</PRE>