<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> That is a wisely sympathetic view, Will, and a nice one. It's horrible to think of people losing everything, as even some list members did (and Paul's family, as he says). But Paul still can't win!  The choices were, I think: 1) Tune the piano including pitch raise and all extra work, for the price the customer wanted, or 2) Walk away. To have chosen option 1) would still, I think, have been a no-win option, because the people WERE unreasonable, and there's nothing to say that would not have bad-mouthed Paul to others anyway. "That shyster was gonna overcharge us, but we stuck to our guns. He'd only done it the year before anyway!"  The whole scenario would have been unprofessional.  I think if one was feeling suffiently charitable, and the people had been nice, and were genuinely distressed, one might have offered Option 3), do the whole job for nothing as a charitable donation.  But the folks WERE'NT nice, and we can only work for nothing in exceptional cases! How could the people have been won round, when they weren't listening and weren't reasonable?  I don't think it would have been possible. So that only leaves option 2), really. But it's certainly good to try and understand the customer's emotional state.  I remember blithely teeling a lady, more than 20 years ago, that her keytops weren't ivory. She wasn't pleased!  They weren't ivory, and the subject had come up. But I could have done it more tactfully. Best regards, David. <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.davidboyce.co.uk">www.davidboyce.co.uk</a> <blockquote type="cite">The customer was wrong, and Paul did the right thing in this situation, but I am going to be a bit charitable in my thinking towards this customer.  Like so many, they lost everything in the tornado and are still living in a motel room a year later.  People handle stress differently.  Some people can handle the big stuff well, but the cracks show in small places.  I suspect their mental and emotional distress plate is still very full at this point.  It may well be that the $88 was all they could afford at this time, and this “new” piano in a motel room home was to be a little ray of sunshine that turns out to have slipped behind the clouds.  I feel compassion for them. Will Truitt</blockquote> </body> </html>