Packing up to move back down the street......sigh

[bsco]

Man. That sucks big time....I turned 65 in April, and I am retired for 11 years.....I definately would not do what you are doing....do they have any idea or do they even care?? .....I would set up my repair shop downstairs on the main floor...and would move say the living room upstairs....I would definately do something to make it work.....and I would make sure that if I continued to repair gear for that company it would be on my terms.......not theirs....they drop it off, they pick it up and bring the cheque with them when they come to pick it up...I hope you get it sorted out....the older you get the harder it is to keep up with this heavy gear......and I am only 65....I leave all the heavy gear into the music store....and just take the electronics...If I have to replace woofers, they order the parts and I do the swap in there..I'm not dragging this stuff around....I wish you all the best and good luck with it all.....I can only imagine the stress that shit like this causes....especially when you don't expect it.....

[nevetslab]

Man. That sucks big time....I turned 65 in April, and I am retired for 11 years.....I definately would not do what you are doing....do they have any idea or do they even care?? .....I would set up my repair shop downstairs on the main floor...and would move say the living room upstairs....I would definately do something to make it work.....and I would make sure that if I continued to repair gear for that company it would be on my terms.......not theirs....they drop it off, they pick it up and bring the cheque with them when they come to pick it up...I hope you get it sorted out....the older you get the harder it is to keep up with this heavy gear......and I am only 65....I leave all the heavy gear into the music store....and just take the electronics...If I have to replace woofers, they order the parts and I do the swap in there..I'm not dragging this stuff around....I wish you all the best and good luck with it all.....I can only imagine the stress that shit like this causes....especially when you don't expect it.....

I think you misread my home apartment as being the shop where I work for CenterStaging as an independent contractor. All that is on ground level. Only at home is where my apartment is on the second floor, and just bringing home the Tek TM515 loaded, a TM503 loaded, power analyzer, 10A Staco Variac, the Simpson DMM's, my spare Amber Audio Analyzer, Wavetek 95 ARB/Gen took numerous trips, with time-out periods to sit in front of the high velocity squirrel cage fan to cool off and get my next second wind before continued to empty the car.

I was just about thru packing at the shop space I've vacated when Carlos (building maintenance) and his helper shut the power off, taking my space dark so they could make the wiring changes needed. Great timing! Reached into my pocket for my little pocket light, finding it's batteries need changing, so had to fumble in the dark for the last loads. So, I'm out.

This is being typed on the desk top that I didn't think would power back up, but did. I haven't been on it since March 19, 2020, so I need to see how much memory is available for all the work I've done since then....can I update my database.

I look down the long narrow pathway between the shelves and benches, seeing piles of boxes....more than went to the other shop, and now occupying my work space. Makes me tired all over just looking at what I have to do the rest of this week and until I have a working shop again. And, July 4th weekend is upon us, so I'll loose days with that shut-down.

Our IT man came by to help get my phone and internet back up and running. He noticed the five ceiling florescent lights out, with there only being the one overhead at the desk and one more partly over the check-out bench. All those lights are on 15 min timers, which are hidden behind the steel shelves on the hallway side of the room. This was a cluster of six closets, that got their walls knocked out, but nobody had any idea of changing the lighting. So, the lighting in here sucks.

Victor also noticed there's no sprinkler system in here. That is why I had to vacate the other space.....for that fire system to be installed. I looked at Victor and just laughed. That would the icing on the cake....time to empty this space so there can be a sprinkler system installed! I then looked down the hallway to the Studios 1, 2 and 3. No sprinklers up on the 12ft ceiling there either. I won't tell if you don't.

[bsco]

Sorry if I had misread....that sucks....they can't help you out any better than that??? and they want their gear repaired??? jack the prices up...I would...

[nosaj]

Your skills should be your negotiating angle unless they know they have you by the balls......Don't count yourself short look back into medical device repair I'm pretty sure you can do it and be in a better enviroment and finacial situation. May not be passionate about it what you are working on but it may be less stressful.

nosaj

[nevetslab]

OK....Day 1 back in the old shop. The Debris field is immense but has to be dealt with in order to tackle the two power supplies for my client's ATI Paragon sound reinforcement consoles. I loaded both of those (70+ lbs each) onto an empty road case used for Fender Deluxe Reverb amps, borrowed from the warehouse.

But, before I could even tackle reclaiming the bench space (and find how to deal with the larger pile of boxes that came back)....I had to transfer my computer files accumulated since March 20, 2020 on the laptop. I just got thru loading those onto the desk top, while the HD space dropped from 10.4GB free space to 8.6GB. I may have to live with this portable HD plugged in and back up the desktop....more IT work to do there.

Our IT man for CenterStaging came by yesterday afternoon to assist in getting the phone set up and the internet back up and working. My Laptop did find the WiFi here in the building, so that was a relief.

My shop went from this:



to this:



And now to this, back at my original shop....now a debris field to contend with.





Both benches are loaded with boxes and small zipper bags that Mighty-Bright music stand lights came in....all loaded with cables, tools, adapters, parts, whatever I could fit into them besides boxes as I was packing up as quickly as I could. When I moved out of here in July 2020, I could get at all of my parts cabinets up on the shelves, though there was minor debris also occupying that same horizontal space. So, now that I have the computer up and running (and feels great to be on a real keyboard again, and not a small Dell Latitude Laptop keyboard), my next project is to reclaim bench space, enough to open up the console power supplies...find which one pulls high current first (no doubt the one on the bottom of the stack). I don't have anyone in this building to assist me lifting stuff, as I had at the warehouse. But, the client is over in the industry artist relations offices....Winn runs the Paul Reed Smith shop there We have Fender, Korg, PRS, Zildjian, Roland, several others here on site.

When I came in this morning, just after 9AM, the air conditioning wasn't on, so it was already getting warm. The controls for the air are under a key-access cover, so I have to wait for clients to show up to use the studios before I get the benefits of cooling air flow down the hall. It's now nice here in the shop. I can't imagine what it would be like up in Portland, OR, or Seattle, WA right now.

[drewl]

You call that a debris field?

My lab at home AND work are more cluttered than that!

[eschertron]

Steven,
I'm curious if CenterStaging has really thought out the 20hrs labor = rent thing. If carting stuff out of the hallway and lugging it onto the bench counts as applied work, then I'd argue that the time you've spent moving from one workspace to another at their direction aught to count toward the 20hrs too. And in that vein, it might by advantageous to point out that they'd actually get a lot more useful (read: skilled) work out of your arrangement if they had someone else do the lifting and carting. If they can't get 20hrs of work physically onto your bench in a timely manner, it should be their loss, not yours. Your talents are a precious commodity, not to be squandered by forcing you to huff and puff and throw your back out!

[Tom Phillips]

You call that a debris field?...

For example

[nevetslab]

For example

Ah....I see a couple old friends....Tek 547 with 1A4 plugin, and, it looks like a 7834 Storage Mainframe on the left. Interesting array of high voltage probes there. Very serious bench!

[nevetslab]

Steven,
I'm curious if CenterStaging has really thought out the 20hrs labor = rent thing. If carting stuff out of the hallway and lugging it onto the bench counts as applied work, then I'd argue that the time you've spent moving from one workspace to another at their direction aught to count toward the 20hrs too. And in that vein, it might by advantageous to point out that they'd actually get a lot more useful (read: skilled) work out of your arrangement if they had someone else do the lifting and carting. If they can't get 20hrs of work physically onto your bench in a timely manner, it should be their loss, not yours. Your talents are a precious commodity, not to be squandered by forcing you to huff and puff and throw your back out!

That's a VERY GOOD POINT! I will bring that up. I'm going to be interested to see how that space I just got forced out of gets populated again. That was the most advantageous space for me to be in, having full access to all the gear I service and always have assistance in moving equipment. AND, in a position to take on an apprentice and/or teach the techs that work in the Guitar Dept basic skills they should know.

[drewl]

For example

Not even close.