low quality, and high quality

[PDtek@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 4/8/99 4:42:16 PM Central Daylight Time, 
nossaman@SOUTHWIND.NET writes:

> A lady called me last week wanting her *free* old upright tuned. She got mad
>  when I tried to decline gracefully, so I spent about ten minutes discussing
>  my reasons with her. Finally, she said she understood, and my reluctance to
>  do the tuning seemed reasonable under the circumstances. She also thanked 
me
>  for the explanation, since none of the other techs who refused her that day
>  had bothered to tell her anything but NO. I'd like to think I saved her 
some
>  grief, but I expect she kept calling until she either found someone to do
>  the work for her, or ran out of names in the Directory. At least she had a
>  clearer idea of what she was up against after we talked.

Unbelievable! I guess this proves that I live and work in hicks-ville USA 
(Des Moines) because I have never turned down a tunable old upright and I 
know of none of my colleagues in the area that have either. I've heard of a 
few tuners who turn away these pianos because they felt the work was beneath 
them, but do there really exist in this country areas where a customer can go 
down a whole list of tuners and not find ONE that will tune their old 
upright? I have been truly naive. I work mostly on nice to very nice pianos 
and COULD exist on just these, but I fear I am too much of a capitalist pig 
to pass up lucrative old upright work. I also admit that I don't know how I 
would go about telling a customer why I did not wish to soil my hands on 
their inferior instrument. I suppose there must be a tactful way.

Dave Bunch