Tuesday, January 25, 2011

When sales people go bad...

Today I re-joined the gym. I have been a member of 24 hour fitness off and on for years now. I like that place more then the others simply because of the 24 hour fact. I have a already busy schedule and if I have to try to fit in the time to work out on top of it I wanna be able to do it at either 11 at night or 5 in the morning. See outside the normal hours of operation for most other guys in my area as well as my apartment.  I also am a big fan of swimming and would like to get into a 1 mile swim twice weekly routine.  They have a 24 hour fitness in Lynwood with a pool and one just up the street from me, that's pretty boring  being all cardio and weights. But I have heard that they opened a super new location in the Northgate area with a pool and that’s all freshly built and supposed to be all special. So I thought I would go and check it out this after noon.

I went armed with the knowledge of what it would cost me to just sign up online. I am not dumb and going to spend more money just because I’m doing it in person instead. So I asked to see someone about signing up. The reception girl, I have to call her a girl because she was probably like 16 and this was her after school job, she told me that I had to fill out a form first and then they would call someone. So I filled out the stupid form gave them all my personal information, reasons why was there, what my goals were, how I like to work out, bla bla bla. I gave it back and had a seat.

I then met my helper person named Andrea. According to her name tag she was an assistant service manager but I cant believe it because she was such a bitch. First off she sat down next to me and with out even glancing at me read me my sheet back to me almost word for word. I wanted to be like, yes I know what I put on it because I wrote the whole thing, and then she asked me what my goals were. I told her that I just wanted to try to find some consistency in my workout. I mean I do really. She was like that’s it? I was like yeah pretty much. Then she was like “so you don’t want to get stronger or toner or loose some weight” I was like WTF I’m not going to talk to this random person about my life situation! I should have seen this as a sign, left  right then, and gone home to do the whole thing online. But I bit my tongue said really what I am looking for is the ability to come consistently. Then she was like well what do you do now for exercise? I was like well I have a treadmill  so I use that,  I walk a lot, and I have a small gym at my apartment. But I am looking to start to get back into swimming so… She was like ok well let’s give you the tour.  It was like she couldn’t care less, and frankly it showed. Again I really should have  just left then.

We started the tour… Now I figured that she would show me the place, walk me around in the locker room, point out all the cool things. What I didn’t expect was that she wanted me to keep jumping on all these different machines and have me to try them out. The first one was some weird stair thing. Where I had to keep walking up and down,  but because I’m a little uncoordinated and my jeans were falling off, I wasn’t doing it correctly. She kept telling me that and was like “no just go up and down” I was like I am trying but cant you see that I am holding my purse, I have totally the wrong bra on for up and down motions, and my pants are falling down? This isn’t going to happen! So I faked a "yeah that’s awesome, I will have to check it out later" and we moved on. Next it was time for her to try to figure out what classes would be best for me to take. This required me answering a million questions about my schedule, weather I like dance, weight training, stretching, when do I get off work? All this stuff that I totally don’t care about. See one of the things I told her right at the beginning was that I am not the biggest fan of the group workouts,  because I kind of like to go in and get it done by my self. Working out for me isn’t a social thing.  Yeah I guess like so much else she was totally numb to anything I actually told her.

Over the course of the next hour she tried to get me to use about 4 other machines,  all of them I had to tell her that I didn’t want to right now, but she wouldn’t take no as an answer. I mean what does she think she is a personal trainer? Any time I asked about costs for things, she would say that she couldn’t tell me until after the tour. I was like well screw this whole trying everything out crap lets end this so find out and then leave. She finally got to the money part. Where they were able to match the rates online and I asked her if they were on any sort of commission sales. Once she said no I figured I would just get the membership now instead of going home and doing it online. If they were on commission I would have left in a heartbeat because I didn’t want this bitchy girl to get anything from me.

She then proceeded to type all my information into the computer incorrectly. I told her at the end that she had miss spelled my name, the apartment number, my email and my phone number wrong. She was like “Oh… Well I have a hard time reading your writing” I mean I’m standing right here, can’t you just ask me what it is? Anyway we got that all fixed I paid my dues. She tried to sell me a bunch of other junk that I firmly had to say no to a bunch more. Then I was free!!! Thank god because if I had to spend another minute with her I think I would have killed her. But anyways I now belong to 24 hour fitness again. And because I paid the extra I get to do to the sparkly new super club out in Northgate. I figured that would be a better place for me to go to on my way home from work since its right between home and work.  I’m glad about it, i'm really try these next few months to see if being a little more consistent with working out helps my body start to function like it should, and see if I lose some weight. Then maybe that is really the problem, if not then maybe it is time for me to consider surgery. Well see what happens I guess.

2 comments:

  1. I hope the swimming is enjoyed as much as I enjoy it. Some people ask if I get bored going back and forth but really I love just letting my mind go and enjoying the motion.

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  2. LOL that's a great story. I, too, have been itching to join a gym, but as you probably know, living in the middle of nowhere land makes it a little difficult. There's no 24 hr fitness. The only place I have to consider is the YMCA. I don't know how much it costs or anything yet because their website is total crap and I haven't gotten a chance to go there in person. I really only want to go there to start swimming like maybe 5 times a week or something, since I read that's one of the best pregnancy workouts and my sister in law sent me an awesome maternity swimsuit! lol. The thing is, I wish I had someone to go with. My husband doesn't even know how to swim and is terrified of the water for some reason so he won't go. LOL I also do not like weird workout classes, but having a friend to go with would be fun. I miss you. WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

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