<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.5730.11" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV>Aside from the middle C wippen flange (or a tenor string) breaking on a 60 year old Acrosonic as you're trying out the piano after fine tuning it and are ready to leave and go home for the evening, here are my list of most annoying things in this business. How many can YOU think of?</DIV> <DIV>Housewives taking 5 minutes to answer the door when you're ringing the bell (always in mid January)</DIV> <DIV>Can't find a parking spot (big cities like NYC only)</DIV> <DIV>Customers that don't show up</DIV> <DIV>Competing with vacuum cleaners</DIV> <DIV>Competing with leaf-blowing machines in November</DIV> <DIV>Little children screaming</DIV> <DIV>Big dogs jumping all over you, little dogs barking each time you make a move</DIV> <DIV>Grandfather and cuckoo clocks going off every 15 minutes</DIV> <DIV>"My husband took the check book. Can I mail it to you?"</DIV> <DIV>"The last tuner charged me only $25 for a tune-up."</DIV> <DIV> It's 90 degrees outside, 100 in the house, and the customer is too cheap to put on the air conditioner.</DIV> <DIV>Dead mouse in piano.</DIV> <DIV>Piano needs everything, especially a complete action rebuild. "My children just started taking lessons,</DIV> <DIV>so make it just good enough for a beginner."</DIV> <DIV>New customer says, over the phone, "I think it's a Yamaha." You get there and it's a Russian piano, vintage 1978!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Jesse Gitnik</DIV> <DIV>NYC</DIV> <DIV>Tech since 1980</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>