After a month of cancelled appointments I finally made it into the gym for my "fitness consultation" today.
Going to the gym for a "fitness consultation" is sort of like going to a used car lot for a "transportation consultation." No matter what your circumstances, you absolutely, positively should buy one of these lovely rustbuckets.
In this case, instead of slimy salesman trying to hawk me some piece of crap Buick, he was trying to sell me personal training.
I have no problem being asked if I'm interested. It's a service that every gym offers, and certainly a legitimate one. But my gym forces you to go in for this goodamn sales pitch just to get your membership card.
It started out well enough. He asked what I was doing, what my goals were, and so forth. Measured my body fat, took me upstairs and checked my form on a few exercises. Then we went back to the office and he drew up a suggested program.
The weird thing is, the program he drew up would've had me spending six weeks working on my "core strength" before I moved up to a more advanced program. By more advanced, I mean the program I'm doing right now.
Quite frankly, it's a gay gym, and this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of why gay men go to the gym. Does a guy ever say "Wow, check out the core on that guy!" No. So we don't care. We're a very superficial people. Actual strength gain is secondary to improved appearance. Know your audience.
If you really want to sell the program, tell me I'll have a six pack, and rock hard chest and ass in six weeks. Make me feel like I'm going to get laid more thanks to you. Not that I'll be better able to balance on a fucking rubber ball.
Of course after he was done designing the program, just as fellow gym members had warned me, the axe fell. "Now if you really want to get the best results, it's important that you have a trainer with you."
I feigned poverty to no avail. Just $75 a month! You'll make so much progress! I told him I like working out alone, which is true. And frankly personal trainers annoy me. They're so artificially upbeat and they're always making this forced go-nowhere small talk to appear personable.
Anyways, it took me a good five minutes to convince him he wasn't going to sell me anything. I should've just told him the money would cut into my ecstasy budget. That would've shut the bastard up.
Once he'd finally got the message his friendliness suddenly vanished. He took away the paper with the program he'd just drawn out, and filed it away. Isn't that a little bastardly? Like let's try to maintain the illusion that we're going to help you whether you pay for sessions or not. Apparently at this place you don't get the bait unless you bite the hook.
That wasted a good hour of my time, and by the time it was done I was so hungry that I just headed home and didn't get a chance to actually work out. The funny thing is, he acted like I'd just wasted an hour of his time. I didn't even want to do the fucking thing, I just wanted to get my membership card already.
Of course they don't care if you're pissed off or not, because they've got you by the balls with your contract. It's like the cell phone industry. Except Rogers didn't make me attend a session on the benefits of picture messaging and mobile web browsing before they let me use the phone.
I'm already a paying member of your gym. If you're going to pout because you can't sell me extras just leave me the hell alone.
Image courtesy of Xtreme Simpsons.
For a long time, I've had virtually no use for it. After all, I was carrying around a T616 which is a first-gen camera phone that is completely useless. If you have direct sunlight on the fourth Sunday of the month during the year of the donkey you might be able to get a usable low-res picture. Might.
But now I have a very nice 2 megapixel phone. I even grabbed a flash attachment off of eBay. This thing takes decent pictures. So once in a while, I figure it's fun to send a funny picture to someone.
Last weekend at the club I took a pretty funny (and highly sketchy) picture of myself with the bathroom attendant. I sent it to three people and none of them got it. Something always goes wrong.
I have no trouble sending. Which is great, because that's the part they charge you for. But half the time the recipient doesn't get anything, or they get a notice saying they have a picture message and they can't pick it up. Or something else goes wrong.
I'm not doing anything esoteric here. I'm sending a picture message, a feature that's been on phones for three or four years now, from my stock Rogers phone to my friend's stock Rogers phone. I figure by now I've paid out four or five bucks for photos that went into oblivion. It's right in that sweet spot where it's not enough to be worth complaining about, but still enough to bug the crap out of you.
This should just work. Is it any wonder this hasn't gotten off the ground yet? Look how long it took text messaging to really pick up, and that's about 45 times more reliable. If a communication channel doesn't work at least 99% of the time it's virtually useless. Do you have to phone someone every time you send an email to make sure they got it? No, but I have to text my friends whenever I send a picture message.
I'd send Rogers a photo of my ass and ask them to kiss it, but that'd probably be another 50¢ down the toilet
Image courtesy of Seth W.
Alright, after using my first blog post to make myself sound like a junkie, how about something a little less intense?
I go to the gym a fair bit, and in my many hours there I can't help but notice that there are a lot of annoying people there. Here's a rundown of the people that drive me batshit crazy:
- The monopolizer: This one thinks he has exclusive rights to a piece of a equipment for a good 30-45 minutes, compadres be damned.
- The multitasker: A variation of the above, this one likes to use three or four pieces of equipment at once, cycling between all of them and claiming ownership of all. Often he is also a....
- Slow setter: The guy that takes 10 minutes between sets. Spends most of his time wandering around the gym or holding inane conversations. Which brings me to...
- The chatterbox: Sees the gym as a social institution above all else. Won't stop talking about the most mundane, obnoxious topics. Pretends to know what he's talking about but is mostly just faking intelligence. Working out near one of these makes it pretty much impossible to concentrate. Bring a few of them together and you have...
- The group dynamic: Take three or four of these ones and they'll take over a quarter of the gym for themselves. One of them will work out while the rest of them take a piece of equipment for furniture and yak like bored trophy wives.
- The steroid freak: Looks like he's had cornish game hens grafted onto his biceps. Has way too much self-confidence despite looking like an over-inflated balloon.
- The fat ass: He's borderline obese, but insists on doing lots of weight training while avoiding cardio altogether. Extremely proud of what he can bench press and completely oblivious to the disgustingness of his 45" waist.
- The creepy aging homosexual: Might not hit on you outright, but will still find many ways to creep you out. One guy at my gym held the button on the water fountain whilst I took a drink. May be less forward and just stare, or make pathetic attempt at conversation based on your t-shirt. Mostly harmless while working out but significantly more disturbing in the change room.
