The Potter Dilemma, Randy not Harry

[Barbara Richmond]

Hi Paul,

I'll have you know I got a failing grade on a speech I made in college.  It was supposed to be a persuasive speech and I talked about the importance of learning a foreign language (Hmm, another study at home thing that is hard to imagine being successful without live tutoring...).  What was my professor's reason for the failing grade?  I hadn't said, "You can make a lot of money if you do this."  !!!  Silly me, I was promoting expanding horizons, understanding other cultures, world peace, etc...  :-)

Well...I'm not opposed to making money!  I like it and I'm very good at spending it.  And, I make  plenty cleaning up after tuners who "aren't prepared."  It's too bad for my customers that they have to pay twice (or more) for one service.  I know a lot of successful technicians who have done the correspondence course thing--they also had excellent tutors and spent a lot of time with them.

I went to a now-defunct school for piano tuning and repair.  Besides learning to tune aurally, the most important thing my teacher drilled into me while giving instruction, was that there could be better ways to do "whatever" and it's up to you to find them.  No matter what our training, there's always more to learn.  It's hard to think of a field where that's not true. 

Best,

Barbara Richmond, RPT
always learning near Peoria, Illinois 




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: paul bruesch 
  To: Pianotech List 
  Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 9:37 AM
  Subject: Re: Re:The Potter Dilemma, Randy not Harry


  Interesting, Barbara... I had just been thinking about exactly this, but from a very different perspective. When I had gotten thoroughly frustrated in my attempts to find meaningful employment in Corporate America [after having been eliminated in a significant downsizing effort which ended a mostly enjoyable 15-year tenure at a Large Company which now no longer exists,] I decided to investigate the viability of Piano Technology. 

  The first words out of the instructor at the very first (local) school I contacted were "Did you look at my website?" and the second words were "You can make a lot of money in piano technology."  

  The instructor at the second (not local) school I contacted said "I'm not sure what kind of money you're accustomed to making, but you'll be able to afford to..."  

  At that point, and still, I am certainly interested in making a decent living, but whether I make the money I was making as a systems programmer supporting large-corporation infrastructure software is immaterial to me. 

  The instructors' comments about money were completely unsolicited and actually unwelcome and off-putting. I wanted to learn a trade that would be rewarding to me and which would put my considerable mechanical ability and musical interests to good use.  Money obviously has some bearing, but large quantities are no longer important to me 'cuz I've decided that it's impossible to get to the point of having "too much," so I'll settle for "enough to feed myself and my kids." 

  Paul Bruesch
  Stillwater, MN


    I hope that when people are thinking about learning this trade, they're just not thinking, "I can make this amount of money in such and such time."  There is something to actually being prepared to give good service, too.

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