Posted by Joe S. on December 06, 1999 at 23:10:26:
In Reply to: Re: Re: cheapness posted by D. Seebaugh on December 06, 1999 at 10:56:29:
Matt is a professional repairman who works for a company that is a bit larger than mine. Possibly, he can accomodate a few more "outside" people than I can, since others are there to do sales, accounting, managing, etc.
My wife, Debbie and I are sitting in the middle of a city of about a million people and anytime anyone says "brass repair?" or "woodwind repair?", our names are mentioned. The interpolated percentage of a million-person city is just too much for two repair people, who are actually trying MOSTLY to run a music store that "also offers" repairs.
Daily, we are totally buried in "auto-pilot" repairs from our first-hand-relationship customers: those who purchase and rent from us. We simply (TRULY) physically do NOT have the capacity to accept repair work from the dozen or so "outside" daily inquiries, because my/our "regular" workload is not even getting done on time. This, unfortunately, DOES disqualify some people who are not (_!_)'s at all, but with the "saturation" situation that we constantly experience, we CERTAINLY do NOT need to subsidize nor "enable" any competitors, nor cater to those particular (_!_) "Wal-mart mentality" customers.
Those who buy or rent from us even understand that if they have another instrument that they acquired previously or since (not from us), that it is not "eligible"...just too, too, too, too many horns to fix ! ! !
We can't even restore shelf-loads of potentially wonderful Bach "Strad" trumpets/trombones, Selmer Paris saxes, high-end French clarinets, etc. that we own and should be offering for sale, not to mention any of my "pet" tuba projects for myself (right now, five of these in cardboard boxes).
Are any considering leaving your "liberal arts" colleges to pursue acquiring high-level skills in the "3D" world, instead of the "cyber", "artistic", "sociological" (to me, this also includes business/sales, educational, legal/accounting, managerial, and other types of skill-sets which require exclusively thinking/demonstrating, talking, writing, and reading) or similar disciples? Those who can do "real" stuff the the "3D" world, and do this "3D" stuff extremely well, are becoming more and more rare, and these types of people's incomes are skyrocketing.
...Some of you may construe what I said above as insults of "non-3D world" disciplines. They are NOT insults at all. I live in both the "3D" and "non-3D" skill-worlds, and profoundly appreciate the values of both. All of those disciples require years of hard work to master, and are all things that are greatly needed in the world. I am just stating that needs are increasing geometrically for SMART people with HIGH levels of skills in the "3D world", and since these types of professions are considered "pedestrian" by some, schools that teach "3D" disciplines are shrinking and fewer and fewer people are available to take care of our "real"-"3D" needs. I have also observed that there is a lot of ignorance on the side of people who lack "physical world" high-level skills. Many assume that these types of skills may be acquired in weeks or months, rather than in many years...(" 'you need any help with repairs right now? I have a couple o' weeks off, and could use some extra cash.")...etc.
**** Whoops, I haven't mentioned anything about the TUBA on THIS post, either. <- There, I just did. (Did you really READ all of this b.s? GO DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE...CHECK YOUR E-MAIL !!!) (;^/)