A JOB TO DO
I was hired six weeks ago to work the front desk at a new health club on the south side of Williamsburg. I was looking forward to having a desk job for the first time so I could read and write when there was nothing else to do and lord knows I needed the work. When I started I weighed 200 pounds; kind of heavy for me, so I was also excited to start working out again. I like the job so far, but it’s not quite what I expected. The reason I’m even writing about what was supposed to be an easy and boring job is a recent incident, actually two incidents, that have me spending my shifts standing behind my desk, staring to the street outside, composing dramatic letters of resignation in my mind. Here’s the first…
To management and ownership:
This letter is regarding the request made at the meeting Monday February 18th for all employees to remove locks from lockers and to clear lockers after each shift. I feel this is an infringement on our rights as employees and as people. I personally will not be removing the lock from my locker as I am not in the habit of doing things that don’t make sense just because an authority tells me to. I am a trustworthy and potentially valuable part of this business and expect to be treated accordingly. I do not see the logic behind not allowing us each a locker or something equally as spacious and safe for our things. There are sixty lockers in both the men’s and women’s locker rooms. Of these hundred and twenty lockers, less than thirty are being used at any one time. I have not said anything about the fact that we can’t sit, eat, read, use our phones, or the internet behind the desk, and that there are no scheduled breaks during our shifts, but I feel this one issue needed to be addressed. I like our chemistry here and hope to stay for some time, but this is the kind of treatment that builds distaste between employer and employee and I am prepared to leave strictly on principal – we need lockers. Thank you for your consideration.
I did not consult any of my co-workers on this matter; these are my words only.
-nate fish
Before we even get into the list of things I am not allowed to do while at work, lets talk about the fact that I am being paid 10 dollars an hour – a good after school job - in this case after school means “post-graduation”. It’s beyond me why I’m even taking the extra time to write these letters, I suspect it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of Orwell lately, and like I said before – I actually like the job.
I worked with a Serbian named Enes before he left to manage the new Bronx location. Now I work with Gosia, a polish girl who will only listen to The Hot List on the satellite radio that plays at all times in the gym (The Hot List plays top forty rap and R & B). I also work with Gladys [Night], Gloria [Estephan], and Bryan. Rick and I gave Gladys and Gloria famous last names - we haven’t given one to Bryan because he doesn’t speak and has meth acne and listens to his i-pod even though the radio is playing. Gladys and Gloria don’t speak either, but they’re Spanish - we’re not sure where Bryan is from and are simply relieved when he leaves every day without having killed us. Rick is the General Manager - Pete is the head trainer. Pete would be a short, thin, white man, but instead he decided to be a muscle balloon covered in pimples and has devoted his entire life to bulking up. Sometimes I stand behind the desk and wonder what made him want to do this. Emran is the other trainer. He is half Italian, half Pakistani – a bear of a man - and he is forced to shave his entire body. He says he’s getting electrolysis soon, that he knows a guy, and can get it done for 770 instead of 2300. Emran is also a magician. He was quiet at first, but ever since the day he snuck up behind me and did a coin trick while smiling and talking too fast, we’ve been cool. And these are the “co-workes” whose rights I’m defending in my letters.
I guess technically what you are reading is the second letter and refers to the second incident.
Last week, I had my right to discount items revoked when I made the heavy decision to discount a member’s day pass from twenty-five dollars to twenty. Membership at the gym is 999 for one year paid in full or there are two monthly billing options for slightly more if that’s how you choose to pay. There is also the option of buying a twenty five dollar day pass if you are not a member – you just have to fill out one of these wavers sir or ma’am. This particular member had to buy a guest pass because his membership was not due to start until April, still two weeks away. He has a broken ankle and wanted to use the steam room for the day and lift some light weights. I remembered selling him and his wife their memberships a week earlier. I sell a lot of the memberships and this is what I mean in the first letter when I say “potentially valuable part of this business.” It’s funny I don’t get any extra money for it, and by funny I mean not funny. Well, this particular member’s wife had misspoke and told him day passes were only twelve dollars, and so he only brought twenty. I told him not to worry about it; that I’d discount the pass and he could use the gym for the day. It came to 20.83 after tax. I put the money in the register and dug through my pockets for the extra .83 cents. Rick was on the gym floor working out at the time. Later that day he said, “Nate, talk to me about [said member]’s day pass you sold earlier,” in his mostest self-important voice with the phone turned away from is ear. I knew it was Elina on the other end. I told him how the poor fuckin’ kid had limped over and only had twenty bucks and how he’s a member and that I thought it a better idea to let him in for twenty then to piss off yet another customer. Elina is the owner’s wife; she monitors us and essentially controls the whole business from her home computer. What neither Rick or Elina know as well as I do is how upset our six hundred or so members are with the gym.
We opened Feb 1st. Of the 600 members, 400 signed up pre-registration meaning just that they got discounted prices on memberships in exchange for a promise we’d open on time. And we did, more or less, but the gym is still only about 75 percent complete. Only two of the tree floors are finished. The gym is 17,000 square feet. The top floor is the largest and sits at the same height as the bike and foot path of the Williamsburg Bridge. The walls of the gym are glass. The first thing you see when you walk in is the big rectangular desk, or more accurately, the wooden frame for what will be the big, granite and slate covered rectangular desk - me standing behind it. There are two computer stations on the desk – one at each of the front facing corners. Each station has a monitor, keyboard, cash register, credit card machine, and printer. Pens, tape, paper, staplers, post-its, envelopes, and Rick’s notebook are in between the two stations – very institutional. Rick’s a bit freaky with the organization and the first thing he does when he walks in is clean up. The gound level, the level with the big desk, is mostly done, but the saunas in the locker rooms are not finished.
One of the common questions when someone new walks in is, “When are you guys opening?” - another common question is, “What’s that smell?” The lower level, the basement, is not even close to being done. Worse, all construction down there ceased when Mike, one of the other owners, fired all the builders. Since construction stopped, a huge pile of garbage has accumulated in the basement and a puddle an inch deep or so of standing sewage leaking from somewhere grows. As you can imagine, people are not too happy about paying a thousand dollars for a half done, shit-smelling gym – so I cut the kid a deal and deducted four dollars and seven-teen cents from his day pass – figured it was good customer relations.
When Rick hung up with Elina he was mad. He said, “Nate, you can’t do that man - you can’t just discount items without asking.” I explained again the circumstance and why I didn’t think I needed to ask anyone before discounting the day pass because I knew I was doing the right thing. Before we go any further, let’s review briefly the duties I am expected to perform at my job. Out of work I am currently writing a book, a collection of poetry, completing a series of paintings, I play and coach baseball probably four days a week, I DJ, I’m starting a writer’s workshop, and starting a magazine and website – while at work I am literally by rule made to do nothing. I stand in my black collared t-shirt they gave me, name tag and all, arms crossed for six hours at a time. I honestly understand the no sitting thing; if I owned the gym (which I never would), I wouldn’t want the people behind the front desk sitting and eating and reading and checking e-mails either, so I stand and don’t say anything. The phone rings roughly six times a day. A lot of these calls are prerecorded messages about, “The vehicle you’re driving…” and that’s as far as it gets before I hang up. Some of the calls are for Maria De La Cruz – we don’t know who that is. And some are straight hang-ups. I was told things would pick up, but it’s actually getting slower. It’s exciting when the phone rings, but it’s really exciting when a real person actually walks in. Part of the reason I’m good at selling contracts is my that I’m genuinely excited to talk to someone when I get the chance, so I take my time and give them a full tour of the gym and make them feel comfortable. I know all the members by name, what they do for work, and their marital status as I do not let them leave until they have stopped and spoken to me for at least one minute. Besides Rick and the rest of our crew, I see the same twenty or so members every day. It is a privilege to exercise during the day while most people are working. There’s Toshi who usually spends about three hours a day in the gym in his khaki pants sitting in, or on, different exercise machines reading his newspaper and making sure to not break a sweat. Jack Nicholson exchanges briefcases with Toshii “the Chinaman” towards the end of The Departed just before everyone is killed. Toshii throws crazy parties at his condo in the city I’m just waiting him to invite me to. Steve Burns was the original kid on Blues Clues. Steve mostly just uses the treadmill. Justin Gallo is a pro surfer. Schuyler owns a yoga studio in Tribeca, has two sons, and is the only person we allow to not wear shoes. There’s John Paul Armenio and his wife. John Paul was recently fired from his job at Morgan Stanley and though his wife spent 4,800 dollars on personal training for him, he never works out with a trainer. There is nothing particularly interesting about John Paul or any of the members I see during my shifts besides that they are who I see every day. When they walk in they scan a keychain card across a little ball with a red laser shining from it called an orbit. When the orbit registers the bar code on the back of their card the photograph I took of the member when they signed up appears on the screen along with their personal and billing information. Barring any billing issues, which Elina tells us we must address immediately, I then ask the member if they need a towel and wish them a good workout. I will likely not see the member again until they are leaving and unless I can spark quick conversation, I say just “goodbye.” Needless to point out, I feel qualified to handle any of these high stress situations that could potentially arise at my job standing behind the front desk of a gym, so when the time finally came to discount a day pass, or not discount a day pass, I chose to take a stand, not ask Rick, and make the decision to go ahead and do it.
The next day, when I went to discount my large Smart Water from the coolers next to the desk, a little box popped up on the screen saying, “this employee cannot discount items.” Oh, this employee can’t discount items? I tried one more time. The same thing happened. I figured out pretty quickly that Elina, from her perch, had tweaked the system to not allow me discounts. So I paid full price for my Smart Water, didn’t say anything, and starting composing my mental two week notice. When I went to change the channel on the satellite radio later that morning, Rick stopped me and said I had to leave it on The Pulse; that I wasn’t allowed to choose the station anymore. I am willing to stand, not have breaks, and even not read during my shifts, but to make me pay three dollars for a water and not allow me to choose the music is too much. So me and Rick got into it a little. I showed him how I can’t discount anymore - he said he knew that I couldn’t discount because he had talked to Elina about it. I said it was poor judgment by them and that with the stench coming from the basement and all the unhappy members they had bigger problems then me discounting four dollars off a day pass especially considering I don’t stand to benefit whether someone pays twenty or twenty-five dollars to work out, and that “I always act n the best interest of the club.” What I should have said is god bless the working man – for he is stupid! – and god damn the god damned bureaucrat for he is nothing but a scared child liable to do anything to save his own ass, or liable to do nothing at all if it better serves that same function.
It’s been six weeks – I collect my 250 a week, listen to whatever satellite station Rick wants, and after exercising for one hour after each of my shifts I no longer weigh 200 pounds… I now weigh 201.
THE END
To management and ownership:
This letter is regarding the request made at the meeting Monday February 18th for all employees to remove locks from lockers and to clear lockers after each shift. I feel this is an infringement on our rights as employees and as people. I personally will not be removing the lock from my locker as I am not in the habit of doing things that don’t make sense just because an authority tells me to. I am a trustworthy and potentially valuable part of this business and expect to be treated accordingly. I do not see the logic behind not allowing us each a locker or something equally as spacious and safe for our things. There are sixty lockers in both the men’s and women’s locker rooms. Of these hundred and twenty lockers, less than thirty are being used at any one time. I have not said anything about the fact that we can’t sit, eat, read, use our phones, or the internet behind the desk, and that there are no scheduled breaks during our shifts, but I feel this one issue needed to be addressed. I like our chemistry here and hope to stay for some time, but this is the kind of treatment that builds distaste between employer and employee and I am prepared to leave strictly on principal – we need lockers. Thank you for your consideration.
I did not consult any of my co-workers on this matter; these are my words only.
-nate fish
Before we even get into the list of things I am not allowed to do while at work, lets talk about the fact that I am being paid 10 dollars an hour – a good after school job - in this case after school means “post-graduation”. It’s beyond me why I’m even taking the extra time to write these letters, I suspect it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of Orwell lately, and like I said before – I actually like the job.
I worked with a Serbian named Enes before he left to manage the new Bronx location. Now I work with Gosia, a polish girl who will only listen to The Hot List on the satellite radio that plays at all times in the gym (The Hot List plays top forty rap and R & B). I also work with Gladys [Night], Gloria [Estephan], and Bryan. Rick and I gave Gladys and Gloria famous last names - we haven’t given one to Bryan because he doesn’t speak and has meth acne and listens to his i-pod even though the radio is playing. Gladys and Gloria don’t speak either, but they’re Spanish - we’re not sure where Bryan is from and are simply relieved when he leaves every day without having killed us. Rick is the General Manager - Pete is the head trainer. Pete would be a short, thin, white man, but instead he decided to be a muscle balloon covered in pimples and has devoted his entire life to bulking up. Sometimes I stand behind the desk and wonder what made him want to do this. Emran is the other trainer. He is half Italian, half Pakistani – a bear of a man - and he is forced to shave his entire body. He says he’s getting electrolysis soon, that he knows a guy, and can get it done for 770 instead of 2300. Emran is also a magician. He was quiet at first, but ever since the day he snuck up behind me and did a coin trick while smiling and talking too fast, we’ve been cool. And these are the “co-workes” whose rights I’m defending in my letters.
I guess technically what you are reading is the second letter and refers to the second incident.
Last week, I had my right to discount items revoked when I made the heavy decision to discount a member’s day pass from twenty-five dollars to twenty. Membership at the gym is 999 for one year paid in full or there are two monthly billing options for slightly more if that’s how you choose to pay. There is also the option of buying a twenty five dollar day pass if you are not a member – you just have to fill out one of these wavers sir or ma’am. This particular member had to buy a guest pass because his membership was not due to start until April, still two weeks away. He has a broken ankle and wanted to use the steam room for the day and lift some light weights. I remembered selling him and his wife their memberships a week earlier. I sell a lot of the memberships and this is what I mean in the first letter when I say “potentially valuable part of this business.” It’s funny I don’t get any extra money for it, and by funny I mean not funny. Well, this particular member’s wife had misspoke and told him day passes were only twelve dollars, and so he only brought twenty. I told him not to worry about it; that I’d discount the pass and he could use the gym for the day. It came to 20.83 after tax. I put the money in the register and dug through my pockets for the extra .83 cents. Rick was on the gym floor working out at the time. Later that day he said, “Nate, talk to me about [said member]’s day pass you sold earlier,” in his mostest self-important voice with the phone turned away from is ear. I knew it was Elina on the other end. I told him how the poor fuckin’ kid had limped over and only had twenty bucks and how he’s a member and that I thought it a better idea to let him in for twenty then to piss off yet another customer. Elina is the owner’s wife; she monitors us and essentially controls the whole business from her home computer. What neither Rick or Elina know as well as I do is how upset our six hundred or so members are with the gym.
We opened Feb 1st. Of the 600 members, 400 signed up pre-registration meaning just that they got discounted prices on memberships in exchange for a promise we’d open on time. And we did, more or less, but the gym is still only about 75 percent complete. Only two of the tree floors are finished. The gym is 17,000 square feet. The top floor is the largest and sits at the same height as the bike and foot path of the Williamsburg Bridge. The walls of the gym are glass. The first thing you see when you walk in is the big rectangular desk, or more accurately, the wooden frame for what will be the big, granite and slate covered rectangular desk - me standing behind it. There are two computer stations on the desk – one at each of the front facing corners. Each station has a monitor, keyboard, cash register, credit card machine, and printer. Pens, tape, paper, staplers, post-its, envelopes, and Rick’s notebook are in between the two stations – very institutional. Rick’s a bit freaky with the organization and the first thing he does when he walks in is clean up. The gound level, the level with the big desk, is mostly done, but the saunas in the locker rooms are not finished.
One of the common questions when someone new walks in is, “When are you guys opening?” - another common question is, “What’s that smell?” The lower level, the basement, is not even close to being done. Worse, all construction down there ceased when Mike, one of the other owners, fired all the builders. Since construction stopped, a huge pile of garbage has accumulated in the basement and a puddle an inch deep or so of standing sewage leaking from somewhere grows. As you can imagine, people are not too happy about paying a thousand dollars for a half done, shit-smelling gym – so I cut the kid a deal and deducted four dollars and seven-teen cents from his day pass – figured it was good customer relations.
When Rick hung up with Elina he was mad. He said, “Nate, you can’t do that man - you can’t just discount items without asking.” I explained again the circumstance and why I didn’t think I needed to ask anyone before discounting the day pass because I knew I was doing the right thing. Before we go any further, let’s review briefly the duties I am expected to perform at my job. Out of work I am currently writing a book, a collection of poetry, completing a series of paintings, I play and coach baseball probably four days a week, I DJ, I’m starting a writer’s workshop, and starting a magazine and website – while at work I am literally by rule made to do nothing. I stand in my black collared t-shirt they gave me, name tag and all, arms crossed for six hours at a time. I honestly understand the no sitting thing; if I owned the gym (which I never would), I wouldn’t want the people behind the front desk sitting and eating and reading and checking e-mails either, so I stand and don’t say anything. The phone rings roughly six times a day. A lot of these calls are prerecorded messages about, “The vehicle you’re driving…” and that’s as far as it gets before I hang up. Some of the calls are for Maria De La Cruz – we don’t know who that is. And some are straight hang-ups. I was told things would pick up, but it’s actually getting slower. It’s exciting when the phone rings, but it’s really exciting when a real person actually walks in. Part of the reason I’m good at selling contracts is my that I’m genuinely excited to talk to someone when I get the chance, so I take my time and give them a full tour of the gym and make them feel comfortable. I know all the members by name, what they do for work, and their marital status as I do not let them leave until they have stopped and spoken to me for at least one minute. Besides Rick and the rest of our crew, I see the same twenty or so members every day. It is a privilege to exercise during the day while most people are working. There’s Toshi who usually spends about three hours a day in the gym in his khaki pants sitting in, or on, different exercise machines reading his newspaper and making sure to not break a sweat. Jack Nicholson exchanges briefcases with Toshii “the Chinaman” towards the end of The Departed just before everyone is killed. Toshii throws crazy parties at his condo in the city I’m just waiting him to invite me to. Steve Burns was the original kid on Blues Clues. Steve mostly just uses the treadmill. Justin Gallo is a pro surfer. Schuyler owns a yoga studio in Tribeca, has two sons, and is the only person we allow to not wear shoes. There’s John Paul Armenio and his wife. John Paul was recently fired from his job at Morgan Stanley and though his wife spent 4,800 dollars on personal training for him, he never works out with a trainer. There is nothing particularly interesting about John Paul or any of the members I see during my shifts besides that they are who I see every day. When they walk in they scan a keychain card across a little ball with a red laser shining from it called an orbit. When the orbit registers the bar code on the back of their card the photograph I took of the member when they signed up appears on the screen along with their personal and billing information. Barring any billing issues, which Elina tells us we must address immediately, I then ask the member if they need a towel and wish them a good workout. I will likely not see the member again until they are leaving and unless I can spark quick conversation, I say just “goodbye.” Needless to point out, I feel qualified to handle any of these high stress situations that could potentially arise at my job standing behind the front desk of a gym, so when the time finally came to discount a day pass, or not discount a day pass, I chose to take a stand, not ask Rick, and make the decision to go ahead and do it.
The next day, when I went to discount my large Smart Water from the coolers next to the desk, a little box popped up on the screen saying, “this employee cannot discount items.” Oh, this employee can’t discount items? I tried one more time. The same thing happened. I figured out pretty quickly that Elina, from her perch, had tweaked the system to not allow me discounts. So I paid full price for my Smart Water, didn’t say anything, and starting composing my mental two week notice. When I went to change the channel on the satellite radio later that morning, Rick stopped me and said I had to leave it on The Pulse; that I wasn’t allowed to choose the station anymore. I am willing to stand, not have breaks, and even not read during my shifts, but to make me pay three dollars for a water and not allow me to choose the music is too much. So me and Rick got into it a little. I showed him how I can’t discount anymore - he said he knew that I couldn’t discount because he had talked to Elina about it. I said it was poor judgment by them and that with the stench coming from the basement and all the unhappy members they had bigger problems then me discounting four dollars off a day pass especially considering I don’t stand to benefit whether someone pays twenty or twenty-five dollars to work out, and that “I always act n the best interest of the club.” What I should have said is god bless the working man – for he is stupid! – and god damn the god damned bureaucrat for he is nothing but a scared child liable to do anything to save his own ass, or liable to do nothing at all if it better serves that same function.
It’s been six weeks – I collect my 250 a week, listen to whatever satellite station Rick wants, and after exercising for one hour after each of my shifts I no longer weigh 200 pounds… I now weigh 201.
THE END
posted by Dr. Fish | 10:59 AM
1 Comments:
Howdy,
When ever I surf on web I never forget to visit this website[url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips].[/url]drfishsqool.blogspot.com really contains lot of useful information. Do you pay attention towards your health?. In plain english I must warn you that, you are not serious about your health. Recent Scientific Research indicates that about 80% of all U.S. grownups are either chubby or weighty[url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips].[/url] Hence if you're one of these citizens, you're not alone. Its true that we all can't be like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, and have sexy and perfect six pack abs. Now the question is how you are planning to have quick weight loss? Quick weight loss can be achived with little effort. Some improvement in of daily activity can help us in losing weight quickly.
About me: I am writer of [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips]Quick weight loss tips[/url]. I am also health trainer who can help you lose weight quickly. If you do not want to go under painful training program than you may also try [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/acai-berry-for-quick-weight-loss]Acai Berry[/url] or [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/colon-cleanse-for-weight-loss]Colon Cleansing[/url] for effective weight loss.
Post a Comment
<< Home