home alone

[Susan Kline]

Dear Wim --

Thanks for the encouraging insights. Everyone must trust their own
intuitions on these things. I still think that avoiding being alone with
children, especially teenaged girls, is prudent, unless you really know
them, and are sure it will be all right.

>Willem Blees  RPT:

>There is another side to this issue, which I want to address to the woman
>techs. How do you feel if you have to tune a piano for a man who is home
>alone? Do you feel threatened in any way? One of you mentioned you would
>cancell an appointment if only a teenager was at home. Would you cancell an
>appointment if only a man was at home?  And to turn that around, how would
>you react if a man, who was alone, told you you couldn't come it, because he
>is afraid you would charge him with sexual harrasment. <snip>

I'm certainly aware that I am making an appointment where a man will be
alone with me, but it has caused so little trouble (essentially none) that I
feel no need to rearrange conditions. I had more trouble when a customer
gave me a key to his house and I had to share it with a large mastiff! But I
still tuned, and nothing happened (except a few ominous growls!)

Sexual harrassment has never come up, but I imagine that I would ask if
there were a time when other people would be present, when he might be more
comfortable. I guess I just don't come over as the type to charge anybody
with anything.

More likely, I think, is the man who would be worried his girlfriend might
find him alone in a house with me. A few men (younger, mainly) have joked
about that, and once or twice their girlfriends did show up, but ... I guess
I just wear teflon. I start talking to them about the piano. The tools
spread out on the piano are my bona fides. Essentially, I chatter till they
are bored.

>I take the attitude that I can be trusted. The rest is up to the customer.

This says a lot! I think, aside from trustworthiness, one projects an air of
being there for a job. One establishes a business context. It's second
nature, really. I'm informal, and enjoy talking to my customers. They are so
varied and interesting! But the business context is always there, in the
background.





Susan Kline
skline@proaxis.com
P.O. Box 1651,
Philomath, OR 97370
(541) 929-3971

"Nature favors the hidden flaw."