Hi Terry, Try to be positive, but honest. You don't want to promise you can deliver the moon 'cause they'll want it delivered by noon...yesterday! But by the same token, you don't want to down-play your true abilities and potential. If you don't toot your own horn here, no one else is going to do it for you. I learned this the hard way, and worked for a lot less than they would have paid... but I didn't ask. Live and learn. As for the tuning part of it, it would be good to try to determine what you're trying to accomplish. What is your prospective boss looking for? Does he want a demonstration of how fast you can go? Does he want to know how well you can tune? There are trade-offs, and he should know about them. He won't get an excellent concert level tuning on a Betsy Ross spinet in 35 minutes. (You know where I'm going...) Does he want to see if you will find the inevitable sluggish key, sticky jack, or loose hammer head? Is he expecting you to do some minor regulation such as taking up excess lost motion that seems to "show up", etc.? Will he check to see if you found the 'squeak' in the sustain pedal? Maybe, maybe not. I do hope you'll be alert to those kinds of things. Being a piano player, it has helped me to see things that would irritate me if I was sitting down to play that particular piano. Perhaps a nice conversation with him ahead of time will give you a feel of just what he's looking for. Good luck in your endeavors. Floor tuning can get you a lot of tunings under your belt. And you'll no doubt run into lots of pesky little problems to challenge your intellect. It's a good place to start. Develop those skills!! Best wishes, Brian Trout Quarryville, PA btrout@desupernet.net
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