Pros
As a repair tech always remain busy either with customer owned instruments or store owned repairs. Great atmosphere being around music equipment vintage or new and a broad range of musicians. Diverse age range, ethnicity and socioeconomic background of both staff and customers. Enjoy helping customers with their instruments and recommending the proper direction for repairs, replacement or DIY solutions. Nice to work on a variety of instruments and repairs, ranging from broken, cheap to expensive, vintage or custom. Nothing better than setting up or repairing an instrument for a customer that's going to go out in the world and create music. Make some commision on repair labor but not a lot. Great relationship with management, sales and operations.
Cons
Minimum to low wage for the specialized tasks and past specialized training or apprenticeship time invested to become a tech. Working full time with some overtime and can barely afford the increasing cost of living. Pressure to meet repair sales, rarely attainable high number because of the unpredictable nature of repairs. Time is used up by evaluation of instruments and diagnosis, with no cost. Often repairs are interrupted by intake, pickup of instruments, sales associates and customers. Computer system and POS is extremely slow and dated. The customers rarely post Yelp reviews when a positive experience and usually only review when negative. Don't make commission on sales of store items. No real long term upward mobility and even less so for the tech department than in sales. Hard to build a