you can pay me now....

[David Ilvedson]

Vince,

I agree with the reinforcements.  The school should be able to afford outside contractors under the head technician's supervision.  Do the CAUT technicians only want salaried techs? 

David I.



----- Original message ---------------------------------------->
From: <vem@email.byu.edu>
To: <caut@ptg.org>
Received: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 18:27:16 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: re: you can pay me now....

>Here's what I think (and I try not to do this too often).  The key to keeping
>the instruments at as high a level as possible with the resources at hand, not
>just linearly looking at expenses alone, is to get reinforcements.  As Jeff the
>administrator said (at the CAUT forum), we have to get other people, such as
>faculty, with us to reinforce our points when approaching the administrators.
>More than once said he that, or something like that.
>vince

>> Dear CAUT Freinds.
>>
>> First of all, again, thank you Don McKechnie for organizing the CAUT
>> symposium. I learned a great deal. It was also great to meet some of you for
>> the first time.
>>
>> There were many subject discussed and some very interesting concerns raised.
>> One of them is the economic impact of the formula we have been working on.
>> Although it is great to be able to figure out how many techs are needed to
>> maintain an inventory in a school, we now need to take this to the next
>> level, and figure out what will this mean to an administration. I think it
>> was mentioned several times, that what administrators want to know is, how
>> much is it going to cost, and what will be the financial benefit to the
>> school, if another tech is hired, or if a full time tech is hired. With that
>> in mind, there are some questions we need to discuss.
>>
>> "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." Know all know the Fram Oil
>> commercial. It advocates changing your oil filter every 3000 miles. Not doing
>> so will result in having to pay to replace your engine. This, I think, is the
>> scenario we need to pose to our administrators.
>>
>> We have spent a lot of time creating a formula showing how many technicians
>> are required to maintain a certain number of pianos. But other than
>> justifying our jobs, and perhaps convincing a chair that you need help, I am
>> afraid the formula will do little to help our cause, unless we can show a
>> cost benefit to the unviversity. In other words, when we tell a school
>> administrator to spend more money to maintain pianos, the first questions
>> that they might ask is. "What's in it for me?"
>>
>> To show you what I am trying to say let me give you a scenario. By yourself
>> you're trying to maintain 130 pianos in your school, worth approximately $1.2
>> million. You make $40,000 per year. You ask the school to provide you with an
>> assistant. First of all, the moment you ask for help, you now become an
>> administrator. So that by itself creates a problem. One of the things I have
>> been warning everyone about is the non productive time you spend on the job,
>> the administrative part, keeping records, talking to teachers and students,
>> writing reports, answering e-mails, etc. When you get someone to work with
>> you, or for you, your administrative hours will increase. So if you think
>> hiring another person will automatically take care of half of the pianos, you
>> are mistaken. You will wind up taking care of 50 of those pianos, and
>> spending the rest of your time doing paper work, and supervising the work of
>> the other person.
>>
>> But getting back to the scenario. Let's say you convince the school to hire
>> an assistant at $35,000. (Lets not complicate the numbers with inflation, but
>> lets look at today figures). What will be the financial benefit to the
>> university to spend another $35,000? If the school spends another $35,000,
>> what will happen to the value of the instruments? Will spending that money
>> increase the longevity of the pianos? Instead of the $1.2 worth of pianos
>> lasting 20 years, will they last 30 years?
>>
>> You will make $800,000 over 20 years, before the inventory will need to be
>> replaced. If you work 30 years, the university will spend  $1.2 million.
>> However, if the school spend $75,000 over 30 years, it will cost them
>> $2,250,000, before it has to replace $1.2 worth of instruments. As you can
>> see, from a strictly economic viewpoint, it does not make sense for a
>> university to hire another technician.
>>
>> This is the way I am looking at this. Am I wrong? Are there some things I am
>> missing? Obviously, the numbers will be different in each situation. But we
>> need a constant to evaluate. What are your thoughts?
>>
>> Wim
>>