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My wife is a pianist and as part of her varied work she takes students in a private studio that we own. She has one who has parents that we find incredibly obnoxious and downright rude that she would rather not have a working relationship anymore. Today she was cornered by the husband because he was upset that she schedule the semi-annual recital for January 2nd because they would not be able to attend. He ended up saying things like it was stupid to have it on that date and what was she thinking picking such a date and then said something along the lines of I am sure you spoke with the students you prefer to make sure they could attend. He has had a chip on his shoulder since my wife changed his time slot after his son took the entire summer off and gave it to a student that studies with her year round. These people also quit and like a fool she took them back instead of just saying she was at capacity. They are really lovely people all around. I was thinking of us writing an email saying that we regret his view that we favor other students and explain how it isn't true (we don't choose the date based on specific family preferences but based on venue availability and try to have it near the school break period) and then let him know that we feel that working with them further would not productive and offer a list of people they could seek for services. I don't think we care if they are upset and I don't think it would damage her business beyond just calling one of the many people waiting for a slot. Is that good approach? Have you guys fired clients before? I almost went into the room and told him to get the gently caress out because he was sort of raising his voice at her but I figured that was way too "macho" and that it is better to deliberate. I just remembered a story. She has a really hard time firing people. One time a student had been stealing money from her repeatedly and I busted him by leaving some 20s that I had taken pictures of the serials and counted before his lesson and then told his father when it went missing. He asked his son to come into a private area to talk to him and came out with the money shaking etc. horrified what his son had done. My wife kept him as a student for another 2 years and he is now at conservatory studying piano performance. She is kind of too nice to tell people to gently caress off so I feel like I have to help a bit. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 18:57
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Nail Rat posted:My thoughts. 1. I write correspondence for her it is her business/decision if she wants to continue having a working relationship with them but it is pretty clear it is toxic. 2. Just checking and was hoping that it might spur other people's stories of firing clients as it might be interesting. The stories that were shared were. 3. Pretty acrobatic leap of logic. 32-bit Siren posted:Your wife should definitely let this client go. The short term stress of writing them a letter, and rejecting them when they try to pressure her to take their kid back will be much less than the long term stress of having these people in your house, treating her disrespectfully. I spoke to her a bit more about it tonight and it looks like we will cut him loose. Not sure when as another student of hers died apparently (a much older woman) and she is crushed so this has been thrown to the back burner a bit until this gets resolved. The jerk guy doesn't show up again for a week so we have some time. I also spoke to her further than before and she was very upset by the situation and she really felt that he had crossed a line. He seemed to realize it to she mentioned as he was a bit sheepish at the end of the lesson but that doesn't truly matter. I forgot to mention before that he in all likelihood hit one of our cars and didn't own up to it last year. A neighbor asked us who the guy was that hit our car since he had been in our house then described his car to a t. When I called him about it he denied it ever happened and we just let it go because the damage was very minor and it wasn't worth doing a he said/she said about it. Dik Hz posted:Every independent person who works with clients should have 3 rates. The normal rate, the rear end in a top hat rate, and the 'holy gently caress if you actually pay this much I'm going to make a ton of money' rate. If the client is an rear end in a top hat, inform them that you're raising rates to the rear end in a top hat rate. If that's not good enough, go up the third rate. If they actually pay it, make sure it's worth it. It took me a long time to convince my wife to raise her rates. She was charging 40 per hour when I met her and had been for years. She now gets around 100 depending on the client. She could probably charge 120 and people would pay it. She HATES talking about money with clients as it feels dirty to her somehow... Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 04:42
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