Hanging up the soldering iron

[kg]

Working to to a repair to a power supply of a $3M MIR machine, might take the same skill and effort as working on a kid's Peavey amp but there is an order or two in difference in what the payer thinks the repair is worth.

indeed!

being a server/waiter/waitress in a fancy restaurant is pretty much the same as working in a cheap diner, but the tips sure are a hell of a lot better!

[J M Fahey]

Fully agree.
I already mentioned a friend who repairs big 4 color rotative magazine presses .
Think U$3M (funny but it roughly matches km6's machines prices) 40 to 60 yard long series of machines , where a *big* (car size) roll of paper gets on one end and colour magazines by the ton drop out of the other.
The Company loses, what? , u$40K to 60K an hour if the system stops?
Not to mention legal problems with customers, etc.
Do you think they bark at my friend's U$5K per hour invoices?
They rather prefer he charges U$10K and takes half the time.
Well, in fact the bean counter there *does* bark, it's his job, but next week or month they call him again, go figure.

[Chuck H]

Even when I retire, I plan on working on musical equipment until I can't move or think anymore.

[Steve Conner]

Even then you'd probably still do a better job than some of the Internet gurus we've seen recently.

Mark and Sowhat: somewhere I have an Encyclopedia Britannica 1986 yearbook signed by Carl Sagan. Don't ask me why it's not a copy of Cosmos.

[Enzo]

Or a copy of Cosmo signed by Helen Gurley Brown.