Formula Concerns

[Jeff Tanner]

Mike,
Hadn't thought about it that way, but you make a very good point.  I agree
wholeheartedly with your concern.

Still, the way the current formula works has its problems in that it comes
to what appears on the surface to be a reasonable result purely by chance,
because the workload for each piano has no foundation in reality.  (i.e.,
103.4 recital grands per tech, while general practice rooms might command
6.6 per tech, or old Hamiltons I've not touched in 4 years because we don't
use them need one tech for every 29.)  This, in my view, challenges the
formula's credibility.  There's no possible way the results can reflect the
actual need except by accident.  The fact that administrators don't know
this doesn't give the formula more credibility, it just hides the error.
And if the PTG is going to stand behind it the formula ought to have a
solid foundation in the numbers which create the result.

I'm also concerned that our effort to tweak our current formula to more
closely represent what everybody is already doing might be
counter-effective to what the formula was initially intended to represent:
actual need.  If we're trying to tweak numbers to reflect reality, then we
need to change the numbers which aren't realistic, not simply modify them
to achieve a higher workload result.

After I realized this last year, I started working on a prototype formula
which bases the final result more accurately on a situational workload for
each piano. A recital grand is based on between 2.9 and 8.1 pianos per
tech, depending on concert load, and general practice room pianos at around
300 with others falling all over the scale.  These workload categories are
derived somewhat from Jim Coleman's "Wisdom" post, the "CAUT Spills His
Guts" advice you posted on pianotech last year, and a rough estimate of
hours it would take to achieve each type of application's needs, but are
not presented in my formula in terms of actual hours required. Then, the
Application factor is adjusted by two other factors for each instrument:
Climate, and Condition.  I'm still tweaking numbers and adjusting for
non-productive time, unexpected needs, etc., but my initial result from the
prototype inventory I created looks like it has potential to resemble
reality.  It's a little more involved than the current formula in some
ways, but set up in a spread-sheet format, my 2-year-old could implement it.

If administrators choose to use such a formula to micro manage, it wouldn't
be difficult to micro manage the formula to require more technicians.  The
tougher the service needs, the lower the workload.

By the way, that Climate factor just got a bump into a higher category.
Air conditioning is broken today and it was 86 degrees in one faculty
studio with 60% RH.  Whew!

Jeff



Michael Jorgensen wrote:
>Hello,
>    Micro managing how often each piano type is serviced, and how long
>that service should take has dangerous potential to cripple us.  We
>clearly don't  agree, or even come close, on this.   If that is in the
>formula, administrators could start to requiring techs to adhere to
>it.   Examples of my fears: "You shall fully tune each piano faculty
>studio once weekly",  "You shall fully tune for every performance, jury,
>audition, or other designated event", "A tuning shall take 1 hour (no
>more, no less)",  "X number of services will go to this or that
>classification of pianos which will take this long"     THIS WOULD BE A
>NIGHTMARE and the job would never get done!
>     We must retain total freedom!!   "Different strokes are for
>different folks!"  Our time and resource budget must be our own!  We all
>vary in skills, strengths and weaknesses, and efficiency for various
>tasks.   THE RIGHT TO DO IT OUR PERSONAL WAY MUST NEVER BE INFRINGED.
>     The formula must be written such that no administrator will attempt
>to legislate how a tech chooses to do his or her job.  Also it should
>never be used to evaluate how a tech is performing.  Most of us
>instinctively already do our best with the resources and abilities we
>have, both for ourselves and the schools.
>
>A strong concern,
>-Mike


Jeff Tanner
Piano Technician
School of Music
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
(803)-777-4392 (phone)