Piano Needs Tuned.

[Kevin E. Ramsey]

    Allow me to give you my interpretation on some of this. Particularly the
church operating on a "shoestring" quote.
    Churches do an incredible service to their congregations, make no
mistake. I was attending a Lutheran church, where the new pastor was putting
65% of the collections in his pocket, as his wages!  This is in a new
church, with an older congregation who will probably leave large amounts of
money when they die, ( No Dear, you can't buy your way in,,,,,,) and this
guy was running it like a business. And then he has the audacity to tell
Catholics that they can't take Communion there if they request it.

    Anyway, back to the point. It's a little like pulling up to a home which
is so big and nice that you envy it, and then having this little ol' gal who
lives there tell you that she's really on a fixed income, and you'll please
not charge her too much, right? But the piano hasn't been tuned in five
years, and you're supposed to do the pitch raise for free and guarantee it
to hold for another five years, right?

    Tell 'em to call the $45 guy next time.


Kevin E. Ramsey
ramsey@extremezone.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Kline" <sckline@home.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: Piano Needs Tuned.


> At 11:05 AM 06/28/2001 -0400, you wrote:
> >The other guy only charged $45!" I went through the bill with him item
> >by item, but he was still flabbergasted. It's been three weeks now &
still
> >no check. I'll wait 30 days and send another bill with instructions to
call
> >me to arrange a payment schedule.
>
> What's with these folks? They're a church! Many churches run on a
shoestring,
> and have tight procedures in place to control expenditures. I'm not as
> careful as I sometimes should be to quote everything and get approval from
> private owners before doing the work, especially if it's diddly little
> stuff, but I sure let churches know up front what it'll cost them. I
figure
> that anything else I notice too late and decide to do will probably end
> up being a charity. Well, it's good for the soul, and not too bad a spur
> to look carefully before taking on a job. Over time, one starts to get
> little operating procedure in place, such as, "always have the owner there
> the first time you work for them," "always check in at the school front
> desk even if you know where the piano is," etc.  "Never charge a church
more
> than the estimate" is just one more fuss-avoider.
>
> I'd bet the pastor didn't enjoy being embarrassed like that, either.
> He may know that the church is poor, but not like being reminded of it.
>
> Susan