Don Teach asked if anyone at Player Piano Co. was monitoring the
Automatic Music List.  Don, you have to be kidding!  They just got
a fax machine last year and openly state, "We do not use computers".

I believe it was Don who said the people at AMPSCO were the rudest he had
encountered.  Not true: the people at PPCo take that prize.

If you phone in an order they will first ask for your customer number and
then proceed to ask your name, address, phone number, etc.  If you make
the mistake and ask them why they need all of this information, when
supposedly the account number is what this is for, you will receive a big
scrawling note hand-written in red saying, "We do not use computers."

Another time when I did not have my account number available I was
soundly chastised on the phone and there were a big scrawling notes all
over my invoice telling me to use my account number.  I still cannot
figure out what they do with it.

I was in the retail, wholesale and manufacturing business for 40 years,
I cannot remotely imagine treating customers the way they do.

This has been bugging me for several years, and now I've got that off my
chest.

Doug Adam

 [ Editors note:
 [
 [ Doug, I'm glad you wrote to "let off steam."  You're probably not the
 [ only frustrated customer!
 [
 [ Durrell Armstrong, proprietor of Player Piano Company in Wichita, KS,
 [ is himself an institution as grand as the player industry he serves.
 [ He has a genuine love of the craft and has taken special care to try to
 [ offer the best materials available.  He's been in business for a long,
 [ long time, too, running it the way _he_ likes!  Are there other
 [ anecdotes our readers can share, happy and sad?
 [
 [ -- Robbie