Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum The things you will do for a customer

I manage a rather successful pest control company in the Chicagoland area. My technician treated a customer's home for a severe infestation of cockroaches. As with out typical service program he assured the customer that if she was still seeing cockroaches in 5 days to call us back otherwise we will stop by in two weeks for a follow-up inspection. Sure as shootin', I got a call, from a very angry customer stating the we made her problem worse and now there are roaches all over the house. When I arrived to investigate this problem... she was right. There were cockroaches all over. DEAD COCKROACHES. I looked at the customer as said, your roaches are all dead. The program is working. She then looked at me as said.. "Your man told me that if I see any cockroaches in 5 days to call. I see cockroaches. Get rid of them. (She was serious and to keep the reputation of our name, I spent two hours vacuuming and sweeping up dead cockroaches.

Just curious...

In the world of a piano technician, what has been your most outragious customer story?

I've told this story before in another thread a long time ago.

Many years ago, I went to an old farm house. The lady had a Story & Clark Studio that had been tuned by a flake. It was 1-2 keys flat.

I warned her about possible string breakage during pitch raise. She said, go and and tune it. Well, strings broke. She came into the room asking "WHAT HAPPENED?" I said, a string broke. 3 of them actually. She started accusing me of setting it up so the strings would intentionally break. Just then, (I've never had it before or since) but, all on it's own, while we were standing there talking, another wire broke. In fact, two of them broke. I said, see? They are rusty and can't take the pitch raise.

I've only had 2 or 3 instances where clients literally screamed and swore at me and this was one of these times. I mean, literally screaming and cussing at the top of her lungs!!! She was accusing me a F****** her over, repeating this over and over and over and over again...

15 minutes later of trying to explain it I'd had enough and screamed back at her to SHUT THE heck UP!!!! I fixed those wires, for nothing, I didn't want to be held accountable for anything in this woman's house, stopped tuning right then and there, leaving it horribly half raised in pitch and terribly out of tune and walked out having the total satisfaction of telling her off face to face.

Turns out, supposedly, somebody dug up her septic tank system and screwed her out of $25,000. Someone else screwed her our of some money for her roof. You know, everyone's out to get her.

I said as I walked away well ma'am, that doesn't give you the right to try and screw the next guy or place blame on an innocent person such as myself and you are dead wrong and have some very serious issues to address in your life but, lucky for me? I'll never come back to service your piano again EVER...and left. She apologized asking if I would finish the job? I laughed out loud and said, You have GOT to be kidding right? I hopped into my car and drove off.

I don't take crap like that from anyone. The customer is NOT always right... :-)

Jerry:

Thanks for explaining again what you are really like.

Hmmm...that's rather enigmatic, Jeff...

I think Jerry was spot on. Just as we should not abuse clients, we're not obligated to suffer abuse simply because we provide a service.

There are ways to deal with abuse without becoming an abuser. That is what "turning the other cheek" is really about. It takes two to tango. We all have a choice to act, or to just react.

-------------------------------------------------
quote:
Thanks for explaining again what you are really like.
-------------------------------------------------

Jeff, I know we have had our "moments." So I am not going to call you out in as strong a manner as I would probably like to. But I swear, can you tell us exactly what prompted that comment?
Jerry Groot certainly does not need me to defend him in any way, but I personally take offense to a personal attack like that upon him or anyone else here.

I think that demands an apology, but since I was not directed toward me, I suppose I have no right to make that kind of demand.

Wayne 723,

I know from having a friend in the pest control business here in Canada, the service contract states whether or not the rodents or other pests are picked up and disposed of. I hope you billed her for the disposal of the cockroaches, especially if the service contract did not state removal of such items………..…..

Well which nightmare would you like? How about the one 10 yrs. ago where I sold an upright to a family and they filed a BBB complaint because the upright only had 65 dampers and they thought I ripped them off……..

Or the fellow that received a 6ft. Kimball player grand from his mother as a gift. This instrument was restored here; he then locates it in an open dining room 8ft. from the open air kitchen where they do a lot of cooking. After multiple calls to service over a 4 yr. period, calls that went un-answered, I then get a complaint that the keys stick. Pulled the action and all of the action parts felt like they had been oiled or something. Flanges sticking everywhere and bent center pins all over the place. After 3hrs. of work I still can’t get it to function correctly. I am then told by the customer this is now my fault because the instrument never played correctly to begin with……….I bid him good day and walked on a $429.00 bill. He came running down the driveway trying to write me a cheque…….never returned…….

Had a couple that were looking for a nice Heintzman upright. I didn’t have one at the time. I suggested they take a small “starter piano” for 500 bucks and get playing while I searched high and low for the right instrument.

I have a couple of beaters here used for temporary instruments while theirs is fixed or I am looking for something. Kind of like a loaner car.

They took the “starter piano” for$ 500, plus the move and the tuning, …. Two months later he calls and complains about the condition of the starter instrument………………… I went over the whole file with both of them in written form……….six months later I get a small claim document in the mail for Provincial Court. The claim was I sold them a faulty piano….

Consumer abuse is not something technicians need to tolerate.

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

I have a three strike rule.

Rude at arrival, first strike.

Complain about the cost work after ordering it and agreeing, second strike.

Continue to complain, rag, abuse, or try to treat me like the help...third strike and I calmly pack my bag and walk away, with no further comment.

I've only reached three strikes a half dozen times in all these years, but it gives me a way to deal with iffy clients.

Jerry's story doesn't sound like he "abused" the client AT ALL!! And, knowing Jerry a little, I'd be disposed to trust his approach. FWIW

RPD

Tooner,

I don't know who in the heck you think you are to "judge another" but, you have shown your true color's time and again in this piano forum for who YOU really are. A troll and a trouble maker. You left once. Time for you to leave again.. Get lost. We don't need or want trouble makers in here.

I put up with an awful lot of verbal abuse, swearing and screaming from this woman before I finally let loose. A full 15 minutes worth.

As a "part time tuner" yourself, you have had a fraction of the experience in this field that I have had in my 40 years of tuning, 35 of them, full time.

I rarely have problems with clients. There isn't a full time technician out there that HASN'T had problems at some point in time. Generally, these clients have some sort of mental issue going on but, that is no reason to take it out on another HONEST person that was called in to do their job.
And, I stand by my statement. I will not take verbal or mental abuse from a client. Nor, will I take it from some smart alack know it all like yourself.

If you don't like what I wrote. Well, TOUGH. Go troll some place else and stop starting trouble!

As I said before:

As I also said, thank you too for showing what you are really like Jeff. Are you having a bad day today or something?

This put me in mind of another thread about providing references...

When someone calls you, you really have no idea as to just who the person is on the other end of the phone. You could be giving some maniac the phone numbers of some of your nicest, most decent customers. I don't provide references to strangers.

I haven't advertised since about 1983. When someone calls me, they were already referred by someone else. There's no other way to get my phone number. The referral works both ways.

It's not that I'm such an overwhelming financial success; It's that I'm proud and stubborn and I'd sooner work midnight shifts at WalMart stocking shelves to support myself if need be, rather than put up with this.

Heck, when I use to work in my garage on cars, I had replaced a timing chain and gears for a customer. 3 days later he calls me up and asks me what I did to his transmission...come to find out, the tangs on torque convertor that drive the trans front pump broke...it's on the opposite end of the motor...

WOW! I thought this kind of stuff only went on in the pest control industry. Didn't mean for this to get personal. How about you other guys and gals. What unusual tuning stories do you have to tell, and please, I know what customers can be like... and they all don't deserve respect. In my 25 years in Pest Control, I've had a gun pointed at me, threatened with a knife, robbed, had a Doberman take a piece out of my hind end and was even threatened by an ex-employee. Being in business doesn't always mean you meet the nicest people and sometime you get ****ed at the way they treat you. That's understandable and I certainly understand Mr. Groot's position. What's your story?

Nope Wayne this stuff goes on in every service business. In yours of course, you can decide who the pest really is, and sometimes it might just be the customer…..

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Here is a story,
I was asked to tune an old upright in a church basement so a theatre company could rehearse for a show.
It was about a note out of tune, Pitch raise and tuning complete the piano sounding fine, I go home.
I get a call back in about a week saying it is a note flat*.
I ask when I can get in to check things out and "touch up" the piano is a half step sharp….
Come to find out the heat was off during the week in the basement (got to about 15 degrees) and by power of observation, the pianist was using a radiant space heater pointed at themselves and the piano.

Call me crazy but all bets are off if that continues of how long the tuning will last…

*The standard for comparison was a tape recording of a keyboard at home, played back on a cheap boom box. – which I’m suspecting played fast (and sharp)

Silverwood Pianos,

Absolutely agree with you. It really doesn't matter where your problems come from. When you are in a service industry, a portion will come from customers. That's business.

Papageno,

I guess this proves that if common sense was so common, everyone would have it. In the works of Ron White, "You can't teach stupid!"

"Jerry's story doesn't sound like he "abused" the client AT ALL!!"

Agreed. Abusing her would have been pulling out the Uzi and giving her a lead tattoo - mafia style.

Shouting at her, by that measure, is pretty mild.

It is has been my experience that 1 in maybe 500 or so piano owners are jerks like Jerry described. Maybe that depends on the area where you live and work. But some people are just paranoid, and when they feel they have been wronged, their paranoia just becomes stronger.

Obviously Jeff has been wronged at some point in his life, and perhaps that is why he was "stung" by Jerry's story.

But, we all run into situations where people have higher expectations, or maybe better described as low expections of service people. We have all been in situations where we feel like we were taken advantage of. But that is no reason for flying off the handle and suspecting someone is screwing us, and especially there is no reason for yelling and verbal abuse.

There was the piano teacher with two pianos who rescheduled once, calling me the night before, costing me 1/2 days income, then six months later, rescheduled again the night before, again a loss of 1/2 days income, and rescheduled a third time! The third time I got the cancellation message after driving 45 min to her house.

I'm parked in her driveway, listening to her "I'm not home message" when she drives up!

I told her to find another tuner. She told a few people I yelled at her....poor baby!!

OK, I’ll spell it out. Any service professional will encounter abusive customers. Since we are all humans we will react emotionally. Sometimes we will act abusive in return. At some point we should just “walk away” as many that have shared on this topic have done. If we don’t, we should examine what we did instead and come up with a plan so that next time we just “walk away.”

Jerry bragged about how he did not walk away. He bragged about how the customer is not always right. In this case, when all was said and done, there was no customer. It really bothers me that no one else sees what happened in the way I do. An appointment to tune a piano resulted in the piano being worse off than how it started, which Jerry took delight in! It seems that Jerry might have been able to learn something from the “flake” (a demeaning term he used) that tuned it before.

Jerry also made a post trying to bully me off this forum. This type of arrogance is displayed by a few of the regular posters here, and accepted by most. I try to warn hobbyists away from here so that they will not receive this sort of abuse.

If I leave this forum again it will be for the same reason that I did last time and for the same reason I lurked for so long before first posting. I do not not like being part of this kind of arrogance. But, I have to take the good with the bad to stay here. If it gets bad enough, I will leave because I choose to not be part of it, not because anyone else does not want want me here.

Good one Bob,

I have had several variations of that scenario……. I especially like the one where you can hear them moving around in the house but they don’t answer the front door……

Sold a piano to a customer once that just wouldn’t stay in tune. I would tune the instrument and then 2-4 weeks later the customer would call and complain. I attended the residence and the piano was way out. After several attempts at correcting this situation I started to ask questions about the lifestyle here. It turned out that every day when leaving for work they would change the heat from 72 degrees down to 60….and then back up….daily……….

My final tuning was the day I learned this fact. I could not for the life of me get this fellow to understand that changes of this type made the instrument run out of tune. I guess in the end he did not want to understand……….

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

What he saved on heat he gave back to you... to tune the piano...

Somewhat in the same vein, I once had a customer who ran a Bed and Breakfast establishment who would not pay his bill. He disappeared after showing me the piano, and never paid despite repeated billings. Incredibly, a couple of years later I got a call to the same address. Thinking the establishment had changed hands, I went to the place, and there was the same dead-beat!

I'm sure he didn't recognize me, and again he showed me the piano and again disappeared. I waited a few minutes, then knocked on the door that he had gone through. 'No answer after several knocks. It wasn't a big place, so I knew he could hear me.

A nicer person would have simply left. I did leave, but not before detuning the piano a bit. A couple of weeks later another tuner in the area that I hardly knew called laughing and told me he had been called to repair my work. The B&B owner had stiffed him earlier, and he said, "I improved upon your work a bit. The thing sounded really horrible when I left!"

I noticed a year later that the B&B had closed.

I don't think anybody tried to bully you off the forum. We may have tried to find out if you were for real or just one of the snipers. Email does not convey the appropriate body language and tone of voice so to take something like that as a personal attack isn't right. Unright obviously violated his own principles by sniping that comment at Jerry. After saying all that flowerey stuff about having the choice and how he is better than Jerry because he walks away, he certainly isn't following those princples now. The abuse delivered to Jerry in the previous post is in no way any less than the abuse Jerry gave back to the client and was far less appropriate. I think Jerry did the right thing in reacting as a human being in the face of an unreasonable person. Chances are she was an alcoholic (It takes one to know one)and sometimes there is no good way to deal with one.

So Unright, it seems there was only one reason for your post and that reason contradicts everything you said in the explanation...
I don't get it. Why did you post that in the first place?

Ah, yes. When you point out abuse to an abuser, they usually claim that pointing out is abuse in itself. But then wouldn’t the claim also be abuse?

Bob Newbie,

You are correct.Good point!

But I did give up on that one.Working with customers should not turn into a war, maybe someone else would state it differently to him but I am not so sure......

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Pointing out abuse is one thing. Sniping a comment like that is an abusive way of doing it. It was no different than Jerry's way of dealing with the customer. It had no tact and was just another shot in the war.

Keith:

Thanks for keeping this going. I thought you would. I am going to assume that the snipe you are referring to is “Thanks for explaining again what you are really like.” If there was nothing shameful, only honorable, in Jerry’s actions it would not have been considered a snipe. I see it as a good thing that Jerry took offense, which was my intent, to show that he did not feel completely OK with his actions. What I did was chastisement, not abuse.

Oops, I missed the forest for the trees! If you think that what I did was abusive and you think that it was ”no different than Jerry’s way of dealing with the customer” then you must also think that Jerry was abusive. Perhaps you misspoke. I hope not…

This thread WAS about things you will do for a customer but unfortunately it has now been turned into SOMETHING ELSE which is about members.

Enough of this one for me……….. :rolleyes:

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Dan:

I have a similar complaint. This thread WAS about things you will do for a customer but unfortunately quickly also became about things you will do to a customer. I could not keep silent.

I have a two-day old story of a terrific customer putting up with me...

I tune for a very nice young lady that schedules her appointments by email. Well, this last time, I had someone else reschedule, so I could schedule her only several days later. In my reply, I meant to type (in reference to the other customer) the words:

"... who rescheduled ..."

Unfortunately, it came out differently. My careless fat fingers working at 100 mph typed out:

"... whore scheduled ..."

Instead of typing:
"...w-h-o-spacebar-r-e-s-c-h-e-d-u-l-e-d",
I typed:
"...w-h-o-r-e-spacebar-s-c-h-e-d-u-l-e-d"

Needless to say, I was horrified when I reread my response attached in her return email. Of course I apologized for my error.

Sometimes customers put up with us, too

Hang in there!
-Joe

Bravo, Jerry! Well said...

Dood! You must seriously lighten up!

Have you ever heard of " If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" ?

Thanks for your support people. I do appreciate it.

I don't understand the theory behind what Tooner is doing other than, in a few of his own postings in the past, he himself has said that he has "issues and that he shouldn't be posting." Whatever that means... Why he chooses to all of a sudden pick on me, I can't say. I haven't even talked with him since he returned again.

At any rate, we are here to help one another, to contribute valuable information not to fight.

I reported this thread to Ken Knapp because this is not the first time Tooner has done this to myself or to others in this tech forum.

Enough already Jeff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, on the positive side of things?

I had a customer that we contacted last week, she has a nice Yamaha grand that hasn't been tuned in 3 or 4 years now because she is in dire need financially. So, what did I do for my customer that used to tune it yearly? Just for her, I dropped my price by $55 just to help her out. I'm not positive but, it sounded like she was about to cry!

She said, I have so badly wanted to get my piano tuned but, just could not afford it. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I said, well, you're welcome!

I don't do this very often but, hey, we help when we can help right?

Jerry...

Too bad this thread turned ugly. Too bad this forum software doesn't have an "ignore" function. Jeff's mantra seems to be "do as I say, not as I do." Turn the other cheek, eh?

Anyway, on the positive side of things and kind of relating to Jerry's story immediately above, I got a call to come tune a piano I just tuned in October for a young, newly married couple. (Maybe I'm a softie for the woman because she reminds me of my little sister.)

I was a bit curious to hear the piano since, like I said, I was just there in October. Maybe I didn't set the pins right? I'm always frightened perhaps I'm doing something wrong since I still consider myself a "newbie" at tuning.

So I get there and she says, "Well, it's really only a couple of notes here and there." She plays one of the high C#s and I can tell immediately that one of the unisons is out, by at least a half-step. Obviously not normal. Most of the real bad offenders were in the upper treble. "The rest of the piano sounds great," she said.

Sure, enough, the outside right unison was out. The bottom pins of the offending notes were incredibly loose. They didn't feel that bad in October, but Michigan had just recently went though a real warm-spell (it was 50+ degress that day after being in the teens the previous week). I gently tapped the offending pins a bit and suggested that we might want to do a CA treatment on the piano sometime in the future. I tuned the notes, even fixed a keytop that was coming off, and said, "Thanks for calling. I'll call you in six months to see how it's doing and possibly schedule another tuning".

"What do I owe you?"

"Nothing. I'll see you in the spring."

She was thrilled, because she really didn't have the money for a tuning, but just couldn't live with those few unisons being so far out. I even showed her how to tune them herself since she had a tuning hammer and mute from the previous owner of the piano. She agreed to do a CA treatment in the spring, so that will be great.

Ah, I knew it!! Just got off the phone with a fellow who thinks “it just needs a tuning"…..When was your piano last tuned sir……don’t remember.

Can you play middle C over the phone for me?

Thanks, this is not middle C anymore this is now B flat below….. Can you tell me what kind of piano it is…..this should be on the front board above the keys…..

Oh yes, it says Whitney………..

Ron, Jerry, anyone, are you busy at all???Need a long distance customer??……help me doctor….help me…..into the Abyss…….

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Ah Yes!!!! The wonerful Whitney. My sympathies Dan!!!! This week for me been a week of Wurlitzers and a Kimball grand. Here in the Lowlands of the Low-end PianoLand, I just dont think I can take a Whitney, especially one I have to travel to.

Ha ha ….… A week of Wurly’s out does one Whitney by a long shot Ron. Good on you for slugging it out in the trenches there…….

I’m just doing the “do I have to tune this one” grumble that’s all……. And then the explanation about low pitch and all the rest of it….tried to do this on the phone but the fellow was not getting it. Hopefully he will understand more when we are in front of the instrument…….

The things we do for customers………

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Jeff,

I was going to PM you but saw you have them disabled.

I have a feeling that this topic might have taken a different tone had your response been something like

"Jerry, I can't say I would have handled it that way. When that has happened to me I've.."

or

"I've been in similar situations and done this..."

Saying "Thanks for explaining again what you are really like" just doesn't come off as sounding kind.

I guess whatever the case, it would be hard for any of to know for sure how we'd respond if we were in the same situation Jerry faced.

Ken

OK,

This just happened today. I did a service call in East Chicago, Indiana for a termite inspection on the sale of a house. When I got there, and after a few pleasant moments with the homeowner, I proceeded to the basement to start my inspection. Much to my suprise, tucked away in the corner, with lots of junk stored on top and around it was a upright piano. A Steinway piano. It was in poor condition.. check that... terrible condition. I asked the homeowner how long the piano had been in the basement because I am looking for a piano to practice tuning, etc. on. The answer was since Granny died... 31 years ago. OH! That hurt.

Bravo Ken. I felt Unright's post was a direct shot at Jerry and had nothing to do with pointing out abuse. It was fairly obvious and why so many people objected. Then when called on it we get the "oh I was this and that... and the rest of the arguements to try and make the claim valid after the fact....

And Unright, you should get it out of your head that anyone has tried to bully you off this forum. There is no such thing. It can't happen. Get in touch with reality. You may have been challenged as to whether or not you are considered a tuner/tech but I was too and probably so is everyone else who posts here regularly. I'm not against you. I have read some of your posts with interest because it helps with my tuning skills. I even tried to add something useful to a recent post.

Namaste

Go fetch that outta the basement. Because, I once went to Long Island to drag a Steinway upright home here to Michigan for one of my daughters, and we drove (not kidding) past a funnel cloud, and through a hurricane that was rockin' the coast...and I've GOT to believe that was a good idea, given the value of old Steinways.

...well, sorta...;-)

RPD

Thanks Ken. I hope that puts an end to it.

Wayne, you didn't manage to convince them to GIVE you the piano???

Yes Wayne I agree it warrants further investigation. I found an old Steinway vertical in a barn a few miles from where I live about 4 or 5 years ago. I took the time to haul the old piano home. It was free, and had sat out in the elements for 8 years or so. I gave restoration a good try, but all the wood was dry rotted. The action was filled with rust, needed everything. It was just too much of a stretch and I gave it up.

The things people do to old pianos!!! :t:

Maybe you can get this one, and save it from the heap.

I seriously don't think it is worth the effort to drag it out of the basement. The basement had flooded a couple of times, (water stains on the concrete foundation) and honestly, it was in reeeeaaaaallll bad repair. I did have a customer who was going to give me a Beckstein 6 something grand, and that was beautiful, but at the last minute her grand daughter decided that she wanted it. That would have been very much appreciated.

Ken:

I do not allow PMs because of the gossip. I do allow Emails from Administrators and Moderators.

Keith:

The more I get to know you the more I realize how precious, pure in heart, you are. Don’t ever change. AFA

I know a Barman who if he felt he was being abused by customers would disappear behind a screen and spit in the customers glass before filling it. If the abuse was particularly bad he would shake a few drops of urine into the customers glass.
The customer would never know because the amounts of offensive material used were insufficient to materially alter the taste but probably sufficient to make the drink taste a little bit off.
Moral of this story is dont P..S off your barman.

On this matter if a customer abuses a piano tuner he /she could always leave the piano just off enough to create doubt but not enough to create certainty.

Wow. That is something I would never do. Morals come into the picture here. But, a lady such as the one I described obviously had something else going on in her life. In my case, I simply chose to leave for the sake of leaving rather than taking any more chances on something else going wrong and being sued later for something or another that I never did. Not to mention the abuse factor.

In most cases, I always do the best job possible. There are those times where you simply cannot hear because it is to noisy that you can't hear anything so, you just tune it and hope for the best. Otherwise, I always do my best job regardless of who the client is.

Somehow this post has taken a 180 degree turn from my original concept. Anyways, it made for some interesting reading and some "scary" revelations. I thank most of your for your interesting service stories and some of your for your interesting comments. If nothing else, I will admit that this forum is interesting and sometimes unpredictable.

Seriously, thanks for posting. It was entertaining.

About twenty years ago a lady called me in the wintertime to tune her upright piano. She informed me as I came in the door that I was the seventh tuner she'd had tune the piano in the last few years and none of the tunings were any good. . .they hadn't held.

The piano was on an outside wall of her little single-wide 50's trailer that had about 2 inch thick walls. It was -20 degrees outside and there was about a quarter-inch of ice on the INSIDE of the window behind the piano.

I tuned it and told her she needed to put it on an inside wall.

Two weeks later she called me and asked, "You DO guarantee your work, don't you?" I went back out.

Now the piano WAS on an inside wall. The room was hot, and on the other side of THAT wall. . .a pellet stove going full bore! The wall was so hot you couldn't put your hand on it!

I told her that any extreme temperature will cause the piano to go out of tune, touched up the tuning, and went home.

The next week one of my dealers called me, asking about this situation. I explained, and they advised me they had "solved the situation". . .They had taken her piano in trade on an electronic keyboard!!!!

Today, I tuned a Steinway M in a church of mine. A little more than about half way through the fine tuning, the choral director comes in asking if it would be okay if they placed the piano from the stage onto the floor? I said, that shouldn't be a problem, it's only one step. "I'll be right back!" He said.

Immediately, I thought, YOU MEAN NOW??? I kept tuning. A few minutes went by and in he walks with 1 old man and another fellow. I thought, oh brother....

It was on a tripod so, that was good. He said, you'll help won't you?? I hemmed and hawed saying gee, that's how I wrecked my back in the first place, moving pianos years ago but, alright...

I went to the side where I had the most control with the least bending, walking backwards down the step rather than bending down it from the front.

I easily picked up the backside and set it down one step and told them to keep it coming... The old man, turns his side of the piano as it was going down and so the piano literally BANGED onto the floor flopping off from the tripod. To heavy for him to lift. Now, I'm thinking ohhh great.. More lifting..

The other gentleman was much stronger and was able to keep his side from doing likewise.

So, he and I picked up two ends that fell from the tripod while the other two men placed the two legs back into the tripod again. Or, moved the tripod to the legs rather...

No extra charge but, a lot of heavy breathing!!!

I finished my tuning which hadn't changed and took off.

Did my good deed for the day!

Wow, Jerry! That's quite a story. How's the back after that ordeal? PM if you wish...

The nightclub where I work used to have one of the spider trucks, but the stage is several levels, so I swapped it for the three-wheel dollies. If there are different levels, you need something that goes with the piano.

I arranged for the truck to be donated to the university.

Backs okay. A little stiff but, I remembered to use my legs and not my back.

Actually, there you have WAY more patience than I have man!! I don't let myself get hauled into a piano moving gig without big strong football players, at least four...but, on the bright side, you've now hit on a brand new technique for stabalizing a grand tuning...pick the piano up and let it fall a few inches after tuning and the notes that hold are stable!

RPD

Good story Jerry. Same thing happened to me last fall at a local high school. I was tuning for a performance that evening and about half way through, they told me they needed to move the piano up onto the stage from down on the floor. The choral teacher rounded up 4 large size football players and the five of us moved it up to the stage.

I dont mind helping either, if enough hands are on the piano.

Glad to hear it!

I spent so much time moving pianos in my younger days that my natural tendency is never to use my back.

Jerry,

Life is funny. When we were younger we never complained about work and heavy breathing. It was alot more enjoyable too.

I must say that my worst experience was when I was called to do a piano in the home of a well to do family! The lady of the house had been told to contact me to tune her piano! When I got there, I opened the piano, and started to put the temperament strip in when her husband entered the room with a chair and sat down by the piano! He looked at me and then said"I want to make sure your doing it right and know what you are doing"! I looked at him, removed the strip, put it in my case, did not re-assemble the piano case and walked out! No less that an hour later, the lady called and asked what happened! I told her and she said she would call back! She did, and I did tune her piano, but, the know it all was not to be found and when I finished, she payed me and twice and told me it is from HIS checking account! Since then, I am called every six months to tune the piano, and guess who pays!!!