> Good sounding, solid unisons are of the utmost importance. However, I > question the implications of testing people under severe time > constraints and poor working conditions. Sure, if one is going to do > the concert tuning thing out in the big bad world, these WILL be the > conditions at times. Yes, at times. >But as CAUT-erizers, doesn't it send the wrong > message to suggest that these conditions are acceptable on an ongoing > basis? I think that runs the risk of casting ourselves as people > willing to be insufficiently supported in the pursuit of our > professional goals. > >How do we expect to be better compensated if we are > willing to accept not-good-enough working conditions as an acceptable > standard? Raise your hand if your goal is to become the piano > technician equivalent of the American Tourister suitcase being thrashed > by a gorilla in commercials from days gone by. > > Alan Eder So we have folks working for too often insultingly low wages (presumably to get the health care and retirement package?), attempting to maintain too many often marginal pianos with no parts budget or cooperation from the administration, working evenings, weekends, and before dawn tuning for every scheduled concert or recital, all the while stirring the political soup as gently as possible so as to not disturb the vegetables at the bottom of the bowl. It seems to me that the standard is already largely accepted. I've been reading some of this thread, and since there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus on testing criteria for Cauterizement, I think it's time to ask what exactly are the professional goals of a Caut that differ from any independent tech other than being more narrowly limited by the conditions of employment. Isn't Caut, like Rebuilder, or Tuner, a subset of Piano Technician? I don't see anything indicating that the technical skill set of the Caut is in any way different from that of any independent field tech other than the difference in the politics. So maybe the testing should consist of making the evaluation committee feel good about the condition of the test piano without doing anything at all to it, considering the lack of time and budget available for it's maintenance and repair. The tech that can do that is the one they're likely to hire, presuming he'll work all hours for the offered salary and benefits package. Has any of you ever seen a monument to a committee? Me either. Ron N
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