In a message dated 8/05/1999 8:56:41 AM, pno2nr1@juno.com writes: << When is it okay to bring along one's diminuitive responsibilities? Kris Anderson, RPT >> Kris; I am afraid the correct answer here is, in my opinion,............. Never. I am well aware of all the trials and challenges of having small ones at home, a job to do outside, and no one available to watch the kinders. The issue here though, in my opinion, is 'how' we wish to be seen. Do we wish to be seen as professionals or as hobbyists who do piano things when it is convenient? In a home where there are two working parents, or just a single parent, this decision is constantly having to be made. Thank goodness my youngest is 24 and I don't have this problem to work out anymore :-) But I have been there and so have most of the rest of us at one time or the other, I would guess. There will be times when it will be absolutely needful to either cancel/reschedule an appointment or take the child(ren) along. 'If' you find yourself in this situation.....what I did on those occasions where I had the choice to make...was to call the appointment, explain the situation, and allow them to reschedule or say that it was OK to bring the child. I never liked doing this though, and thought then that it was very unprofessional and I still think so. But when that tuning/repair fee makes the difference between paying the mortgage and/or putting food on the table .........what does one do?? A number of years back we had a tuner show up, wanting work in town. We had him tune a couple of pianos in the store and he proved to be an excellent tuner. As I walked out to the car with him, while discussing when and how we could use him, I discovered that his entire family, wife and two children, had been sitting in the car waiting for him to finish. I thought nothing about this after mentioning it to de big boss:-)............until we started getting phone calls from customers not really complaining, but concerned, about the tuner who left his children in the car while working in their house. We felt that whatever the reason that it was temporary and would soon stop when the couple got settled down.......well it never stopped and even started to get worse, as far as number of calls we were getting when the weather starting getter warmer/hotter. I spoke with him about this matter and he said he did it because he didn't want to 'waste' the money on day care. I suppose that knowing that he was making a 'very' good amount just from the store with most of the work being outside tunings and that he always had floor stock to work on to fill any voids in outside service. I got piqued. The decision to let him go was a joint one made only when the stores' image was starting to suffer and when he refused to make 'any' arrangements for his children other than to sit in the car, even to the point of having his wife quit her job and sit in the car with them. I have always had the nagging thought that there was a heck of a lot of stuff going on here that we did not know about :-( I suppose that this situation plus my own experience with my own boys has shaped my opinion of when it is OK to take the child(ren)................. Never. But when it MUST be done allow the customer the option to OK it or to reschedule. You will be surprised at how understanding our customers are, at least on the first occasion. My view. Jim Bryant (FL)
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC