Thursday, March 08, 2007

They'll take your soul!

Leaving the kids at home with their Daddies, I went with a friend of mine to see about her changing her gym plan. She joined Soul Sucking Gym (starts with a B and ends with an Ally's) in the new year on a family plan with her husband, BIL, SIL, and sister...so far everyone but her husband has decided to quit. Since Soul Sucking Gym makes you sign up using automatic payments (yes, THEY DO!) my friend had to go and adjust the membership to only include her and her husband, because the payments were coming from their account anyway.
Enter Soul Sucking Gym: you see every machine being used and lots of people in red shirts (employees) floating around watching people here and there. As soon as we walked in we were bombarded by three people in red shirts asking us if we needed any help. Good customer service? No, they saw we weren't dressed in gym attire (we were both still in work clothes) and carrying no duffel bags, so we must be FRESH MEAT! GET THEM TO SIGN THEIR LIVES AWAY NOW! QUICK GET THE FORMS! When my friend said she was changing her membership, the red shirted employess disappeared into thin air. Really, suddenly we were standing there alone. Five full minutes later a black-and-red shirted employee (manager?) came to us and asked us to follow him into a 'private' room. I looked at my friend, she just shrugged. We were led into a small, smelly room with glass walls and two chairs that I really didn't want to sit in. The sweat smell was over-bearing, making my once hungry stomach feel queasy. The black-and-red shirted man started asking her why she wanted to change her membership. She explained, in very simple and easy to understand terms- but that she and her husband wanted to stay on. They went regularly. He turns to me "So you're going to keep coming with her then?" I smiled as nicely as possible and said "She just said she and her husband, I am not him. I'm just here to keep her company." Dummy. He turns back to her and asked her the situation again. I thought she has said it pretty clearly the first time. He turns to the computer and starts clicking away on the keyboard. He starts telling her about two-year contracts and having to put $193 per person down for a new plan. She looks at me, eyes wide. I'm sure mine looked like dinner plates, too. "I don't want a new plan, I just want to take three people OFF my plan." He looks back at me "Well, you're going to keep coming aren't you?"
crickets.
This guy is a fucking genious.
"I'm not a member here. This is for her and her husband."
"Oh, well, why don't you sign up? We can come up with a great plan for you..."
"We're not here for me, we're here to take care of her business." I felt like covering my neck, afraid he was going to suck my blood that very second.
Back to her: "I see you're on a month-to-month plan, why don't you sign up for a two year contract? we can give you a deal."
"I may not be in this state for two more years, I don't want to get into something I can't get out of, so the month-to-month works just fine for us."
"Oh, if you move away from here, and you move further than fifteen miles away from another Soul Sucking Gym, we can terminate your contract. Where will you be moving?"
"Dominican Republic."
"Oh, that's no problem, all you have to do is bring in your one-way ticket and we can terminate the contract with no problem, but not before 18 months." I'm shaking my head at this point, these people are ridiculous. A one-way plane ticket? Is that a joke?
"Look, all I want to do is take three people off my plan and stay month-to-month. If you can't do that, then terminate everything now."
Puzzled look on the black-and-red shirted guy.
Three phonecalls, visits from two other managers AND her personal trainer, and more clicking away at the keyboard, they finally figured out what she really wanted to do.
An hour and a half later we were on our way to pick food up for the husbands and sons, who were calling to see what the hell happened to us. (They were together at the house...)
Remind me to just invest in a treadmill or bike at home, it will be cheaper than these soul-suckers. And if two months later I just want to pack the things up and throw them in the basement, i won't have a red-shirted employee there asking me to show him a one-way plane ticket...
Geez.

Any horror gym stories from ya'll?

8 comments:

Iris said...

You mean aside from the horror of being a plus size girl going into a gym where everyone looks at you like, "How dare you bring your fat ass in this gym and ruin our image?"

Tuesday Girl said...

I am glad my gym membership is FREE.

Lainey-Paney said...

y'all are so patient.
I'd have dropped a few F-Bombs, told them to cancel the whole thing...sent a treadmill sailing up their a$$, and then JUST to make sure there were no more payments taken out of my account...I would have notified the bank & PAID a bank fee to stop any & all payments to them.

I hate B...Ally's & their stupid-check-me-out-I'm-a-model-&-look-great-in-a-thong-commercials.

Diana said...

iris- they looked at us like that when we walked in!
tues- lucky bitch. LOL!
lainey-welcome! and believe me I was biting my tongue, since it wasn't my sitch to deal with. But I would have been flipping out, too, trust me. I hate them. I even hate their parking lot! I'll stick to the Y when it comes down to me going to a gym again, I like the 'real' women that go there.

Rita said...

this is my story: my 2 friends and i decided to joing this B-y's gym. i received more than 25 phone calls, asking me to join. we went there, decided to join in a 'family plan' and our family plan was gonna be for 3 years. 3 YEARS!!! i dont know what i'm doing tomorrow and they want me to sign for 3 years. geez... anyway, the guy was NOT nice and as we all speak spanish we started to argue in spanish. suddenly, a spanish speaking manager gets in. and we were fucked. we got into a month-to-month deal, ($40 a month) and now the same plan is join for $5 and pay $5 a month...
our gyms (we go to 2) are just normal people and neither of us is skinny and i dont really give a fuck anymore about people looking at me and wondering why i'm going to the gym. (if they knew i only go there for moral support and to walk 30 minutes because of the 'you on a diet' book...)
:)
Noe

dennis said...

I think somebody figured out month to month was cheaper.

now if you would have pulled out the cell phone and called the gym to cancel/change the plan while sitting in front of the shaved(?) ape, then that would have been sweet!

Maria said...

Gym? ME?

Anonymous said...

lol No, no stories from me. I have a treadmill in my basement, with a tv in front of it that I don't use enough. And I'd rather put up with the investment of that treadmill than assholes bugging the hell outta me.

I'll never join a gym!