Speed, Accuracy & Efficiency=Profit

[Larry J. Messerly]

Hi Brian,

I sympathize with you.  been there suffered that, however if it works for
you you might try what I do.  Every day when getting in the car say a
very short prayer, "God, get me where I need to be when I need to be
there."

After that I have no problems.

Larry Messerly

On Sat, 26 Feb 2000 00:04:42 -0500 "Brian Trout" <btrout@desupernet.net>
writes:
> Hi Bill,
> 
> I'm glad you had a good day today.  Some days go like that.  And 
> some days
> just don't.
> 
> I had a rotten day today.  Not really because of any one thing, but 
> just the
> whole combination.
> 
> My first call was a "freebie".  I do subcontract tunings for a 
> store.  I had
> tuned and installed a Dampp-Chaser system three weeks ago.  Well, a 
> couple
> of days after, I got a note that there were some "sticky keys", 
> would I go
> back and take care of the problem.  Sure.  I figure with a bit of 
> added
> moisture, perhaps there's a hammer or two rubbing or a tight key 
> bushing, or
> something similar.  I get there, and we're chasing ghosts of 
> problems past.
> Notes that she claims are making funny noises which are nice and 
> quiet and
> pleasant compared to the 'normal' racket from keys around them..., 
> not much
> volume in the highest 3 or 4 notes of the piano, we won't get into 
> hearing
> problems right now, a barely audible squeak in the pedal, <we can't 
> hear
> high C, but we can hear a squeak in the pedal which is about 1/100 
> the noise
> of high C, and ironically, nearly the same pitch> (which required 
> some
> rebushing of trapwork, and this is a 2 year old Chickering grand, 
> just burns
> me a bit that it wasn't a little better made to begin with, another
> story...)... I do feel an obligation if these are things I was asked 
> to
> address when I was there to tune, or were obvious when I was there 
> to tune,
> but they were not, and I was not. The list continues.  I'll be 
> blunt.  This
> thing is a polished turd. For every thing you fix, there's two more 
> things
> waiting.  This stuff was not what I would call a fault of mine for 
> having
> tuned and installed a climate control system, but yet, it's my fault 
> that
> there was a "call-back", and I'm expected to "take care of it at my 
> own
> expense".  It's a good thing I'm not in the car business.  If 
> someone
> brought me their car for me to replace all four tires and the next 
> week the
> muffler fell off, I'd be expected to put on a new muffler system... 
> at no
> charge.   AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!   Let's just say there's some serious
> re-evaluation going on in my mind at this time.  (And Roger, if 
> you're
> reading this, I think I might know a little of what you might be 
> thinking,
> but if you want to comment openly or privately, I'm certainly open 
> to your
> thoughts.)
> 
> The whole thing was allotted a 1/2 hour time slot, and of course, I 
> went
> over, so I'm late to my next appointment, which by the way is 3/4 
> hour drive
> away, not 1/4 hour, as my time allotment would indicate.
> 
> I arrive to find one of the nastiest Steinway 1098's I have ever 
> tuned.  I
> tried all of the tricks I could think of.  The CPL on the bearing 
> points,
> tuning lever at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00...  hard blows, fast blows, 
> sitting,
> standing,... It was still a miserable piano to tune, full of false 
> beats,
> flagpolling to beat the band, horrible rendering, and hard on the 
> shoulder.
> Call me what you want, it took me about 1 3/4 hours before I was 
> satisfied
> with it.
> 
> So I'm still late for my next appointment, although it's not out of 
> line
> judging from my being late from the first one.  Until,... I head 
> down the
> highway only to find out that between traffic, and hitting every 
> possible
> red light, stop sign, and tourist available at the time, that my 
> next stop
> is well over an hour's drive away.  (And you can bet your bippy 
> there's no
> hour scheduled into my day for drive time.)
> 
> So I arrive at the next one about an hour late.  Fortunately, a nice
> customer, but a nasty little piano that's almost as bad as the 
> Steinway 1098
> for string equalization, with some really nasty scaling problems to 
> try to
> overcome trying to create a nice tuning.  It did turn out pretty 
> nice, but
> it required a bit of extra creativity to get the temperament area to 
> sound
> uniform, TuneLab just couldn't quite do it this time... and by this 
> time,
> I'm tired, and late, and getting cranky.
> 
> I had other things I wanted to do today as well, that just didn't 
> get done.
> After the last tuning, I had another hour and a half drive back to 
> my home
> town, which got me to a planned stop exactly 4 minutes after they 
> closed for
> the day.
> 
> Some days do go well.  Some days it seems that no matter how hard I 
> try, I
> just can't make it flow smoothly.
> 
> Maybe someday, I'll figure out how to do this thing.  Or maybe I'll 
> get
> smart and figure out how to make a living with shop work, since 
> that's what
> I'd much rather be doing anyway.  Yea, yea, I've heard it before, 
> "tuning is
> where the money is..."  After a day like today, I don't give a rat's 
> a...
> well, let's just say I don't care how good it pays.  I had a crappy 
> day.  I
> didn't make much money, and I didn't have much fun doing it.
> 
> I'm venting a bit too much.  Sorry for the downer folks.  I just 
> needed to
> blow off some steam.
> 
> I'm going to bed now.  Maybe I'll feel better when I get up.
> 
> G'night all.
> 
> Brian T. (Frustrated in Pennsylvania)
>