<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>2 Rude Questions</TITLE> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <STYLE>P { MARGIN: 0px } </STYLE> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16608" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Alan,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm even ruder than that. I charge my clients for insurance in case I burn down their house heating a shank or forget a mute and have to come back. I don't even give them a choice, I just include it in my fee.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Talk about rude.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fenton</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=pianotuner@embarqmail.com href="mailto:pianotuner@embarqmail.com">Alan Barnard</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=pianotech@ptg.org href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, March 17, 2008 9:25 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> 2 Rude Questions</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>The first rude question is related to our business, or any business actually: Today I mailed out some of the tools I recently sold on the list. The postal clerk wanted to know if I want to buy insurance. Question: Since I am paying them to safely convey said packages, why the heck should I have to pay more in case THEY lose them or break them? Maybe we should start charging our customers an extra amount to cover any possible callbacks we get because we left a mute in the action, or forgot to replace a pedal rod, or something, hm? A little screw-up insurance for OUR trade.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Second impertinent question: I keep hearing ads from companies companies selling gold ... you know, "Now is the time to buy", "Gold is a great investment", etc. My question is, if gold is such a great thing to buy and hold, why are these people so anxious to sell it?  Seems like a fair question, to me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Alan Barnard<BR>Salem, MO<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>