I’m guilty as charged! Like the old saying…”the pot calling the kettle “black””. I found myself caught the other day staring down the proverbial double barrel, caught red handed, cornered, whatever you want to call it….anyway, my conscience got the best of me and I couldn’t deny it. I have to confess I felt pretty hypocritical.
Here’s the situation. I was sitting in the dentist chair a couple weeks ago for my annual….semi-annual, no…more likely, my bi-decade visit, just wrapping up the visit which proved to be very painful for me. Not in the teeth either. It was painful for my conscience, as well as for my wallet. See, my dentist found that I needed 3 or 4 crowns and a filling since my last visit 4 years or more ago. Wow. That will cost me, big time. As I was leaving, he said something to the effect of, “now don’t be such a stranger”, or “next time, let’s not wait as long”..what he was really saying was…”dude, it’s your own fault for waiting so long. I could have saved you a bunch of money and a whole lot of pain if you had only kept regular checkups.”
It was at that moment I thought I was listening to myself talking…or at least thinking of what I’ve wanted to say to certain customers at times. For instance, the customer who told me that they had their piano tuned the week it came home from the store in the early ’80’s, new …then just had it tuned this year…nearly 30 years later. That was it! Two tunings in 30 years…and the first one came with the purchase, I guess! Don’t I feel special, I was the one who was chosen to do the honors after all these years! : ) Yup, we had some catchup work to be done on that piano.
Anyway, back to the dentist chair. It was at that time that my conscience got the best of me, like a child who stole the cookie from the cookie jar and couldn’t contain his guilt, and I blurted out before I could stop myself…I said to him, and his assistant, “you know, that’s funny you should say that. I feel so hypocritical. Here, I’m a piano technician, and I implore my customers to not wait years and years to get their piano serviced, or it will end up costing them “big time” later…and here I did that very thing with my dental visits. Wow, do I feel like the pot calling the kettle black”. He just chuckled…his way of saying that he of course was in total agreement with me!
I say that to say this…that it’s pretty natural for most of us to put off, to forget, or avoid what we know we should do because more important things come up, or we dread the tuner’s/dentist’s visit for whatever reason (see they’re both about the same…you grit your teeth the entire visit! It’s either the noise of the monotonous pounding of the tuner, or the dreaded noise of the dentist’s drill!)
Many find it interesting that it’s usually the mechanic that drives an old beater and the piano tech who doesn’t have time to tune his own piano…so, I decided I’d better break the stereotype and put my piano on the calendar. Next Wed. at 11am, I scheduled my own piano to be tuned! I haven’t gone years or anything like that, but let’s say, I sure understand how my customers feel, as it’s really easy to forget how long it’s actually been. Time has a way of getting away from ALL of us.
So, I hope this post serves to do both of us some good. It sure helped me to get that off my chest, and it will surely help me to empathize a little better with my customers…that I truly do understand. I also hope it helps you to realize that it does sometimes cost more to make repairs than it sometimes does to do preventative maintenance. Waiting can be costly. Ask me how I know!
It was a lesson that I’m sure everyone can learn from.
Believe me, I’ll be reviewing this little lesson for the next couple months as I have my teeth repairs done!
Until next time, make a joyful noise….and make an appointment with your tuner…and dentist while your at it!