Since there does not seem to be
service-related trade magazines - at least for electronics - anymore, most people
have never gotten first-hand experiences of the kinds of travails endured by servicemen
as imposed by customers. Radio News, Radio-Electronics, Popular
Electronics, Radio-Craft, and other such magazines regularly carried
articles and sometimes regular monthly columns with content contributed by guys
in the repair shop and in homes. Some were actual scenarios and others were fictional
based on typical experiences. The most entertaining were told in story form, and
were undoubtedly embellished a bit in order to increase the drama factor. This Serviceman's
Experiences feature ran in Radio News for a few years. I have to admit
to not quite getting the "Leg Department" comment, unless it means he was treated
as a gofer (i.e., go for this and go for that, using his legs). Optional theories
are welcome; maybe that used to be a common term.
Serviceman's Experiences
By Lee Sheldon, Chicago, Illinois
"Don't argue with your customers; give them what they want!" is the maxim which
the author discovers and applies. The results are most encouraging.
"The 'phone is ringing," said Al, turning from the workbench. "Don't you care?"
That's one of the things I don't like about my partner. He is too sarcastic,
and never appreciates my methods. When we started in business together, he agreed
to work inside the store, and I agreed to work outside. From then on -
"Stop acting coy with the customers," he said, with that annoying tone, "and
find out who is calling. We used to get repair jobs before you took to sitting at
the desk with your eyes out of focus. Answer the call!"
From then on he called me the Leg Department. All he has to do is sit in our
nice quiet store, waiting for me to bring-
"Grab that 'phone!"
I know a storm warning when I hear one. I picked up the receiver.
"Good afternoon," I Crosby'd.
"Salutary Sales & Service. Mr. Sheldon speaking. May I serve you?"
"Pool-tables," muttered Al, from the background.
"So sorry," said someone on the 'phone. "I was dialing a radio store." He hung
up.
I knew without looking that Al was gathering acid for one of his common remarks.
The 'phone rang again. I answered the call very quickly, as I always do.
"Radio store."
"I had trouble getting you," said the same voice. "This is Mr. Field, 4445 Webster
Avenue."
"Yes, Mr. Field. What model set have you?"
"Never mind. Come up at three. Bring some gold radio wire."
"Gold wire?"
"Well-haven't you any?"
"Certainly, Mr. Field. We have the most complete stock of -"
"Then bring it with you. Three o'clock."
He hung up again.
"What," asked Al, who is very mercenary, "did you get out of those two calls?"
"Fellow wants some gold wire at three o'clock."
"Fortunately, we're still in business.
That's lucky, considering you've been in the shop for more than an hour."
"Maybe the fellow is nuts. I don't think the call is worth answering. Why does
he want gold wire?"
"To put silver threads among. Now, be on time and sell him anything he wants."
"But, what am I going to take along for -"
"But nothing! Don't be fussy in times like these, or Brown will throw us out
on our 'buts'." Brown is our financial background.
"Mr. Brown doesn't expect me to answer the calls of lunatics," I said, firmly.
"There is no use wasting gas, and I refuse to go."
Mr. Field led me through his apartment to a large room, arranged as a studio.
When I saw a cello leaning in the corner, I recognized him as the eccentric soloist
who was paid more than he was worth for a weekly 15-minute broadcast of classical
music. His rate, at an allegro beat, came to about four dollars per catgut cycle,
which was more than he got for sawing wood in the old country.
"They can't understand how that big orchestra fits into that small cabinet!
"Did you bring it?" he asked abruptly. "Of course. I have a reel of it down in
the truck, but I didn't want to cut any off before I knew how much you needed. Very
valuable, you know, since we went off the gold standard. What's it for?"
"Put the floor lamp by the piano, and the table lamps over here. The radio goes
against the south wall. Rewire the music stand. Nothing but gold matches the new
decoration. How long will it take?"
Shades of Hertz! He wanted bronze-colored lampcord!
"About an hour. It will cost -" I estimated quickly: wire, $2; staples, 10 cents;
labor, $3. Plus $2.75 because I think I can get it. Total - $7.85.
Our wholesaler was only a few blocks away; the wind was with us, and Theodora
- our delivery truck - went wild and made it in fifteen minutes.
While I was working, I turned on the radio. The heavy console contained an
Atwater-Kent 41, two pounds of dust, and a coiled pipe
magnetic speaker. I pulled the -71A output tube from the socket, and saw it had
brass prongs, which dated it about the same as a brass radiator on a Ford.
Its quality was difficult to describe. Perhaps a man reciting poetry and hanging
himself while a load of pea coal was being delivered would come close. How, I wondered,
could a man who had spent his life studying music tolerate such distortion? What
a difference two new audio tubes and an a.c. dynamic would make!
When I had finished, he paid me and waved the receipt aside.
"Thank you," I said, warming up to the repair job. "No doubt you keep your radio
for sentimental reasons, but do you know it also can be made into a source of pleasing
music? It needs attention very badly, and I can make it really sing."
"You know nothing of your business, young man!" He crouched and walked slowly
toward me. "Do you mean to stand there and tell me you ever heard a set with quality
as good as mine?"
I was not standing there, but backing away toward the door.
"Nothing comes through below 600 cycles," I insisted, "and the highs are badly
distorted. I'm sure you would appreciate the difference new parts would make - it
would give the set a chance to operate like its designers intended."
"The upper register is beautiful.
Do not argue. The bass is perfect. I can forgive ignorance, but not insolence
!"
His collar was getting smaller, and I thought it best to leave.
I got no sympathy from Al when I came back to the shop. He just sighed, and sat
down at the desk in the manner of a person resigning himself to old age.
"Some day," he sermoned, "you will go out of here trying to get repair work intelligently,
instead of saying silly things under the impression you are heaven's gift to the
tone-deaf customer."
"Look, Al," I pleaded, "do you have any idea what a 12-year-old output tube sounds
like when it tries to jam a program through a stone-age speaker? Can't you see I
was trying to help him, and get a repair job?"
It is easy to tell when Al gets narrow-minded, because he disagrees with me.
"No," he said, "I can't. I will say, though, that if your effort was cash receipts,
none of our store history would be written in red ink.
"You don't seem to realize that tone quality is entirely a matter of emotional
appeal. Like love and religion, quality appeals to the heart, not the head. When
emotion comes in the door, logic scrams.
"Three factors influence the choice of a set. Two of them, shape of furniture
and price, are based on logic, and are derived from tangibles such as the size of
the purchaser's living-room and pocketbook. The third, and most important, is timbre,
and is base on emotion. One person buys a high-pitched set, the other, a low; each
thinks the other is crazy, but both have chosen the sets which give them the best
emotional reactions."
"My biggest emotional reaction comes from hearing the wail of a distant locomotive
whistle late at night," I pried in. "According to you, then, I should feed my aesthetic
being engine toots. Imagine sitting down after supper to listen to the C. B. &
Q. Nocturne, by the Boys of Section Eight!"
"Why not? If we didn't have different responses to music and quality, there would
be only one set in the world, and everybody would own one. There wouldn't be any
manual means of voluntary distortion, such as tone control, either.
"In your case, where musical education stopped at the coin slot of a gin-mill
player piano, the higher forms of the musical art do not cause the response they
would in someone else.
"Do you remember Raymond Knight's Cuckoo Hour? One Saturday, as a gag, he rendered
Mendelssohn's Spring Song with steamboat whistles. Naturally, it was ludicrous,
because it sounded like East River on a foggy night. I happened to listen to it
with a group of sea-going men, and it had them dreamy-eyed before it ended. Those
funny noises meant something entirely different to them because of their emotional
conditioning."
"I see now why you won't imitate four Hawaiians," I said, "but what's all this
got to do with my losing a repair job?"
"Plenty. Don't try to foist your preferences on a customer in order to get work.
Your standards of quality come from a technical knowledge of the set; his from his
emotional conditioning, of which you know nothing.
"Instead, appeal to the customer's partiality for his set. Agree with him that
the quality is wonderful, and tell him what he needs to keep it that way. He will
recognize you as a person of refined tastes, and you will have paved the way to
his pocketbook.
"In any event, don't be arbitrary, because his judgment of his own set is the
only appraisal that means anything."
"By the way, Al, what's the thing that gives you the greatest emotional wallop?"
"The bell on the till," he answered, changing to his usual coarse manner, "and
I hope to hear it oftener, when I nurse you into business maturity. Let's close
up."
I thought of Al that night when I turned my set on. If he knew so much about
tone quality, what made him pick out the high-pitched model he has in his home?
My radio has perfect quality; being a radio man, I was able to pick the one with
the best tone with no trouble. My ears might be big, but they're musical, and I
chose the one set with full-bodied, low pitch.
Now and then a picture drops off the wall while I'm playing it, but that's only
because the plastering is cheap.
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