Lucky Friday 13th

[Willem Blees]

Mike

Some days are like that. There are other days when you have a full day scheduled, only to have?two or three of them cancel the night before. 

But speaking of a general slack in business. Part of it?has to do with me being here for only 8 months, but this week was particularly slow. I only had?5 tunigns. (although the last one was a repair, and I'm going back after the convention to redo the action). 

How are you guys doing out there? Has business slowed down any because of the recession? Are people canceling, or not scheduling, because they're spending money on gas, instead of tuning?


Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT
Piano Tuner/Technician
Honolulu, HI
808-349-2943
www.bleespiano.com
Author of 
The Business of Piano Tuning
available from Potter Press
www.pianotuning.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Spalding <mike.spalding1 at verizon.net>
To: Pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 2:04 pm
Subject: Lucky Friday 13th


Well, it didn't start out looking lucky. Due to bad planning and general slackness of business, I had only one tuning scheduled today. 25 mile drive to downtown Milwaukee, to the restaurant where the Yamaha G-1 would need a 20 cent pitch correction, accompanied by the kitchen staff's boombox through the wall to my right, and the vacuum cleaner to my left. But I had gotten a voicemail from a classy social club just a few blocks down from the restaurant, wanting to schedule a tuning on their recently but poorly rebuilt S&S D, so on the way to town I reached for my cellphone to talk to them about tuning right after the restaurant. No cellphone - must have left it in my gym-bag.....?
So here's where my luck turned. Traffic was light and fast, arrived downtown with time to stop in at the club and confirm that later this morning would be fine. On to the restaurant, found a parking place right in front. The kitchen boombox must have been broken, and the vacuum didn't start up until I was doing the last of the tenor unisons. Got to the club, they said "do you have time to do both pianos?" And then, just as I was finishing the first piano, a charming young waitress approaches me and says "would you like some lunch on the house?" Caesar salad, crab cakes, and a coke, served on-stage next to the D, gave me the strength to go downstairs and face the Everett console. I love this job!!!?
?
Mike?

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