100% (OK...not that many) of band directors

[Rick Denney]

The real point that I was trying to make is that people are now sheltering themselves from real verbal communication - and insisting on written communication (texting), but fail to read the written communication for important details, so what the heck...

Another consequence of this is that people don't really say what they mean in written communication, because it's a permanent record of what they said, and they don't particularly like that.

Verbal phone calls are useful, and people need to return to them and embrace them when they are best.

Yes, I have noticed that also. And it isn’t just verbal communication, it’s all person-to-person interaction. Anger is rampant and self-control minimal to nonexistent. The notion of quiet indignation and the moral authority that it carries seems to be dead.

But I like texting for a lot of things because it allows asynchronous communication, except that texters often become demanding about an immediate response.

99.7% of the landline phone calls we received are unwanted solicitations. We ignore them. But it’s there for 99.999% of the emergency calls we might need to make. Cellular service is the first thing that dies around here in a good rainstorm, let alone a real disaster.

Rick “wondering what road will lead us back” Denney

[MikeMason]

Band directors are also my customers. They are getting younger and younger. They like to text with only a couple exceptions. I also like texting because it gives me a reviewable record of what was said and what they’re asking me for. Unlike Bloke, I’m not usually the actual service provider for them, but am rerouting requests, which is easier when I can just forward a text. I’m always connected including Apple Watch. I give a very high level of service to my people. Another thing I’ve learned: no response to a text IS actually a response. They are always receiving.

[YorkNumber3.0]

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[jtm]

Seems like most of this problem would vanish if you texted your customers from your landline number.

[bloke]

Today, I offered (since Mrs. bloke had a wild hare to wander west into Shelby County (Memphis' county) for a lunch-party thing, I offered to deliver a band directors' LAST instrument (a tag-along, due to a late parts arrival) to their HOME, so that they would have it for Monday band camp.

well...

They gave me 1234 Highway 567 N. (no zip code)

so (even though I was surprised that they lived "out that way", I headed there.

One I arrived, that ended up being an open field. I texted them again...and asked to please include the ZIP CODE...
yup...There home was 20 miles away - in the adjacent state.

Pay attention to details. Don't assuming anything.

...and yet the ASSISTANT directors get paid LESS than these "head" band directors.

OK...I accept much of the blame for assuming that they would TELL me that their address is in ANOTHER STATE !!!

bloke "Whatever...There was still food, and I missed the most annoying part of the program."

more information that anyone would possibly find of interest:
This is an annual lunch-party, whereby members share their talents (such as they are) as well as their hobbies...
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... tid=ncKXMA

[bloke]

I very much appreciate @Colby Fahrenbacher's possible solution.

Our/my phone(s) is/are always on, but I just don't trust myself to remember to turn off ring/vibrate at venues, so I just NEVER turn EITHER on.

After all, people in their late 60's are not long for this world, and their (OUR) brains tend to become band-director-like.

Also, it's pretty damn liberating to not have the phone/pocket-computer thing being so bossy, which is a lot of the reason I moved from iPhone to Android (iPhone being just too damn bossy)...I also have no not-included apps installed, and the phone's Android version of siri remains turned off (I'm absolutely loving it).

The fact that I am not-in-the-least interested in "finishing setting up my phone"...Well, the Android doesn't bug me about that - not at all.

[2nd tenor]

I get the frustration. Repair folks are servants and, despite the craft and skill involved to not do anything but a crap job, (most) people look at them like a guy pumping gas or mopping floors (and they don’t respect those jobs either). This won’t change. There is no road back to civility (partly because civility in many circumstances was a myth and social media crushed the myth).

This will probably p!ss you off. Not my intent. Like I said, I get it. I’m commiserating the experience.

To those watching thinking repair is attractive and a noble craft, think twice. It’s a dying occupation with diminishing returns.

I don’t want folk getting into arguments and the original text isn’t far above.

Experience of repair folk in the UK might differ; though here too everyone wants to be a Chief and nobody is happy to just be an Indian. What I’ve noticed here is that instrument repair men, and indeed craftsmen of all types, know how to charge. The guy who services my boiler lives in a bigger house than me, I have professional qualifications and have done OK in life but I’d have likely done similar or better by staying as a technician.

Brass repair technicians around here are scarce, there’s now little to no competition - different to even a decade ago - they can charge whatever the customer can stand and the customer has to travel … Repair guys of all types might, in general, be servants but ya’ better be nice to them or they’ll simply refuse your jobs and get well paid by someone else instead. Diminishing returns, I think not; as ever, supply and demand rules.

One thing I’ve found with Teachers and other professionals is that whilst they might have lots of qualifications a whole lot of them have little common sense and some - my own children included - would struggle mend a bicycle puncture … they’d end up paying through the nose to have a ‘servant’ do that.

[YorkNumber3.0]

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[bloke]

I'm not very technical, and just a horn fixer guy, but this time of year I don't have a lot of time for people to give me wrong information about geography or to not pay attention on how to effectively communicate with me regarding particulars, when it is they who are presenting me with the urgency, and it is they who have the deadlines, and not me. It's also us - unlike other horn fixers - who actually meet their deadlines.

I guess if they would sort of stick with us from year to year, there would be less things such as plugging of female threads on the tops of pistons, redrilling them, tapping the correct threads back into them to fit the correct stems, and stuff like that...and we could take care of their repairs in a even more timely manner than we do.

I think there's one repair person in this area that is sort of like Mike Pence, in that they go around telling everyone what a Christian they are. Somehow, it seems to take a little bit more than bragging about one's religion to effectively remove all of the leaks from piccolos, and to actually have parts in stock, rather than improvising by ruining piston stem threads.