Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum So, what did you do today?

Replaced the highest monochord bass string on a Howard (Baldwin) spinet. The string was missing, so after a conversation with the supplier’s winder, I took what measurements I could by snaking a length of thin, soft wire into place and marking where the terminations and the winding ends would be, and measuring the diameters of the next lowest monochord. This saved me from pulling the drop action and was probably more accurate. Well, the string that I received had the exact length of the winding with no allowance for stretch. I tried it as it was but had to remove a half dozen turns of winding. Then again, I did not put a twist in the string. I did not want it to stand out from its neighbors in this middle aged piano. That might have helped, but I don’t think so. I think I will switch suppliers. Want to know which supplier? Schhhhh…, it’s a schecret.

Well, today was the day of all days. I arrived to a school that I've been tuning for over 35 years. They have 14 pianos. I was planning on tuning 8 today and 7 tomorrow along with 1 home client tomorrow. After we started tuning, my son and I, someone from the office approached my son and simply handed him a piece of paper that said, we only need 3 pianos tuned this year. "Jer" walked it over to me. I walked into the office and said what is this? "We decided that we only need 3 pianos tuned this year." And, when did "we" decide this? "2 months ago." I made this appointment two months ago. And, why, did it take you until NOW to inform me of this!? "Well, you are here, now." I was also told that they "thought of it last week but then, forgot again." I said, do you have ANY IDEA what you just did? This person gave me a look as if he could care less. I said, it is because of YOU and your total and absolute inconsiderateness that I just now, lost over $1,200 worth of income for this week!!!!!!! Do you suppose for a moment, that you could have informed me of this 2 months ago or, 1 month ago, or even last week maybe instead of waiting until NOW to do it? That is extremely rude! I cannot fill this time slot on such short notice!!! Especially the remainder of today! I am on vacation next week so I cannot pull something out of a straw hat from there. I am tuning at my college the following two weeks after that, so nothing can be yanked from there either. My other schools and churches requested the dates that they have after that. THANKS A LOT for waiting until NOW to do this.

I said, I do not have a problem at all with the fact that you need to pare back. I understand this but, you need to understand just exactly what you just did and that this is one huge income loss for me and another reason why my prices will likely go up to EVERYONE again next year. You need to give advanced notice of things like this.

You know what? I didn't even receive an apology from this snob, not so much as a gee, sorry man, nothing. And he was a part of a "Christian School?" I would fire this guy if he worked for me for doing that. He is a "business manager." Fire him instead and save the school tens of thousands.

I'm still mad. Does it show?

Jer, it surely does, and you make a good and unquestionable case, too.

There is probably a board further up the ladder to send these very words to. If you need references, just refer to us here at the forum

I'm sorry to hear that, Jerry. It's a good thing that you explained to him the effects of his actions on your business. Maybe he'll make more of an effort to communicate next time.

I know you didn't ask for my advice but, what I do when something like that happens is, remind myself of all the times that it does work smoothly, and that some lumps have to be thrown in once in a while.

The road has to have a few bumps in it to keep ya on your
toes.

I don't stay mad for as long when I think like that.

As you said, Jerry, figure cancellations into your rates. I get a couple of cancellations a month, and they get noted in the file. Most reschedule, and I have the opportunity to make some extra money to make up for it. Just think of all the pitch raises those 11 un tuned pianos will need next year!

That sucks, Jerry. Why is it so hard for some people to understand that for the self employed time = money. Time lost = - $. That's a huge chunk of income. One is bad enough, but a whole couple of days worth of business is a huge chunk.

If I were you, I might consider billing them for late cancellation. If you end up losing the client, it might be a blessing in disguise.

No, I couldn't tell you were mad...:<:{

Around here most professionals have a policy of 24 hours notice for any type of cancellation:

As a business professional, I have the same policy.

Jerry,

In this case you received no cancellation notice. This is only being done because this person thinks that he/she can get away with this. Because you have been doing this place for a long time, they think you need the work to survive.

Also they wanted you to show up, and would you have done so for 3 pianos only?

Here is what I would do:

I would send an invoice for the 3 pianos tuned.

Send a further invoice for the FULL AMOUNT you have lost. With this further invoice, send a cover letter explaining that this work was booked in good faith; due to no cancellation notice you have not been given an opportunity to book other work that you could have been paid for. Now the time is lost and you are un-able to recover it, also due to no cancellation notice. If you are in the mood, in that letter make an offer to reduce the following invoice from full tuning charges to a service call on each of the instruments missed.

Send this invoice and the accompanying letter to the HEADMASTER or head administrator of the school.

Do not send this to the business manager. As a matter of fact I would not have further dealings with this person; you have entered into an agreement with this person in good faith and this has caused you a detriment.

In reality, this falls under estoppels’ law called promissory estoppels’. Estoppels’ law has developed differently in different countries of the western world and is not often used as a sword but in this case it just might be appropriate.

Basically a party cannot promise something, and then do something else causing the other party a detriment. They can be “estopped” from doing so.....

You booked the tunings in good faith 60 days ago. After agreeing to this appointment, you have attended, and this has now caused you a detriment because the other party changed the agreement.

You don’t have to follow up on the letter or the invoice but I would send them anyways to show you are serious about your work.

A little morning reading for you.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

Specifically this part:

Estoppel by silence—Estoppel that prevents a person from asserting something when he had the right and opportunity to do so earlier, and such silence put another person at a disadvantage.

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. They are appreciated. After putting a lot of thought into what I was going to do, I decided to write an email to both the school principal and to the person in charge of the pianos. The following is what I just now, sent to them:

Hi ****, (Name intentionally deleted)

I'm not sure that you are aware of what took place yesterday, but I lost $1,260 in income. A tremendous amount of money. This was due to the simple fact that I was not notified in advance that the school was planning on tuning only 3 pianos instead of the 14 that you currently have. **** (name deleted) even mentioned to me on the phone at school yesterday that she thought of this change of plans last week but yet, she never bothered to call me. Why not? I could have filled in this lost time with something else instead of having a day and a half off like I do now. We scheduled this appointment 2 months ago.

I have been servicing for your school for well over 35 years and expect to continue servicing for you in the future. I am not trying to intentionally get any one person into trouble and I do not want to lose the school system over this letter due to a possible reprimand of the people responsible for it but I feel that you must be informed of this to avoid any future problems with this type of thing for either myself or with other vendors. As a Christian organization, I know that you will appreciate being informed of what took place so that corrections can be made to avoid this in the future.

After much deliberation and after sleeping on it, I decided that it was not fair to punish the entire school system for the apparent lack of consideration of a couple of people. I do expect however, that this will never happen again. I want you to know too ****, that I have chosen, (this time) to completely forgive the school. I nearly sent a bill for some of my lost income, but I chose not to do so. Forgiveness is often better than anger and holding a grudge.

Any business requires at least 48 hours notification of cancellation or change of service. Even without a written contract which we have never used and have never needed, it is a simple common courtesy for anyone to inform the other party of a change of plans prior to their arrival. In particular, when it is something of this magnitude. I was pretty angry over it yesterday as you can well imagine you might be too if this had happened to you. Losing a total of $1,260 in income is nothing to sneeze at. This is totally ridiculous, UN-Christian and very unacceptable.

Below, is an email I sent to **** last night. When we scheduled the appointment 2 months ago, we told the office that we were booking out 2 full days to "tune all of the pianos." From that point on, that is exactly what I assumed we were doing until yesterday when I was informed otherwise after my arrival there. The business manager told me that he knew of this 2 months ago when we booked this appointment. That gave him, ****, or someone else, 2 months to notify me…
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is what I sent to the person in charge of the pianos that should have contacted me about the change.

Hi ****,

Today, I was surprised and quite taken aback to discover that 10 tunings were completely eliminated AFTER, I arrived to the school.

Because someone did not call me in advance, I was forced to take a pay cut this week of over $1,200 worth of lost work and lost income. I am on vacation next week so I can't just grab something from there to put in the rest of today or tomorrow where I now have a day off. I am working at Calvin College the following two weeks so I cannot grab something from there either. The rest of my scheduled clients are planning on certain dates in September so, I'm stuck… It is this type of inconsideration that causes prices to increase for everyone in the long run and it is not acceptable.

Now, I can easily understand the need to cut back, there is no problem there. However, I cannot understand when I set the appointment two months ago, why I was not informed of this cut sometime between then and today. That is only common courtesy.

My family and I, have been tuning for the school for over 35 years. Had someone just said hey Jer, we're really hurting, we need to cut back a bit for a year or so, could you help us? You know what? I don't do this very often and I do not do this for everyone but, I will do it for my good clients like your school. To help the school out, I would have tuned ALL of the pianos for $80 a piece instead of $140 which is my normal price. That would have saved the school $826. But, nobody thought to ask…

I will continue tuning for the school in the future as we have a long standing relationship but the understanding must be made that if there is a cancellation of this magnitude, I must be notified in advance of it. It is only fair for me.

What I would like to know now, to place it into my records for next year, is what shall we plan on from now on? Tuning all of them every other year? What kind of plan should we consider?

Sincerely,

Jerry Groot RPT<<<<
----------------------------------------------
Thanks for taking the time to read this ****. I am home today because I could not find anything else to fill in this very large void on such short notice as mentioned above. Being self employed, nobody pays me for sick days, vacation days, or any other days off or for missed work of any kind and of course, my business expenses continue as usual.

Jer

Dang Jerry, sorry to hear that.

Shoot and I was happy to tune an M.Schultz grand in need of some real TLC. Did get the job to repair the bench though...

I received a call almost immediately from the principal upon his receiving that email from me. He could not apologize enough for what happened. He doesn't want to lose me as their technician either. He said that he went and talked to their newer business manager and told him things like this are NOT ACCEPTABLE and that he was wrong for the way he handled things. He said he would also talk with the music director as things could have, and should have been handled much, much differently. I think he apologized about 10 times.

Congrats, it nice to get some feed back..

One apology for each missed tuning! Nice....... Two of my stops tomorrow are past cancellations. One canceled an hour prior to the appointment, and I couldn't confirm the second one the night before, so I didn't go. I may find some extra work each piano needs for some extra $$$$.....In fact, I'm sure I will.........

Funny Bob! Today I tuned 3 homes. An RX-2, An RX 6 and a REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY CRAPPY LITTLE Kohler & Campbell spinet that has only been tuned 4 times in 50 years. I tuned it last April of 2002. It was at 441. 2 strings in the bass had knots tied in them, another had been replaced and one string in the treble was missing. It had noisy rubber grommets. You know darn well, if I tried to remove the action grommets would break... This piano tuned just horrible!!!! I lowered pitch, went over it twice and called it good. I haven't run into one this yucky in a long time. Time for a replacement for sure.

Ha, I had a Kohler Spinet yesterday, and it was just as bad. I was sighing so much with frustration, that the customer commented "sounds like you are frustrated". I would tune a note, and five notes later, the first had slipped.....and I wasn't raising the pitch! The scaling was awful. I finally got it acceptable, but it kicked my butt pretty good!

There must be a plague of junky spinets with breaking grommets. Yesterday I did a Hallet Davis (a-holian version....) with plastic elbows (replaced already) and plastic damper flanges(none breaking--yet). I spent half of my time there trying to get the pedal spring screws to bit in the bottom board.

Today was a different matter: a Kawai k-3 at pitch, which I polished, tuned and regulated the capstans on, then a Shigeru Kawai SK-6 for the Cabrillo Music Festival at a bed and breakfast high in the mountains, deep in the redwoods. Unfortunately, it included a major pitch adjustment. The building it resides in is a former barn with precious little insulation. I last tuned the piano when it was 43 degrees, 82% and pouring rain, way back in December. Today it was 82 degrees and 43%
humidity, leaving it around 20 cents flat. This is nothing for you midwesterners, I'm sure. Great piano.

I must need to get a life--- I actually read the article on estoppel.

Groot, I'm in hopes that the guilty school authorities will take some steps to make things right with you financially. Certainly, their proper apology is a first step in the right direction.

In the future, you might think about booking their appointment with the help of a signed work order. There are standard business forms, easy to find and fill in. They're a lot cheaper than throwing $1260 out the car window on the freeway, and the rebuke, if any, would be fairly gentle.

Interesting job today. I replaced a wheel on a Steinway D that had thrown a tire on a Colson piano truck. I jacked up the truck, took out the caster, and took it to a place in San Francisco that deals in Colson casters. They replaced the wheel, I replaced the caster, and the piano is rolling again.

BDB, do you have one of those large pneumatic piano jacks?

I tuned a Hamburg B for an outdoor concert. It was 100 degrees when I started, and the piano was very flat. After the pitch adjustment, the bass went 5 cents +/- sharp. It was really squirrely during the pitch raise, but settled acceptably for the final tuning. It's kind of like shooting at a moving target from a moving vehicle.

I have tuned this piano 3 times now in the last 1 1/2 years. The first time was in February at an indoor venue, and the piano was locked in at 445. The next time, earlier this summer at another outdoor event where temps and humidity were ideal, it was spot on at 440. Yesterday, in the midst of a heat wave(but luckily under a huge pine tree!) it was down to around 436 in the mid range.

I used my pin block jack. I also stuck a piece of two by six under the leg. You have to lift the truck. The piano comes along for the ride.

Back to the college again. Did 5 Kawai's and one Schimmel vertical today then went for a 2.4 mile walk. Bed time.