Some days I swear clocking in feels less like going to work and more like stepping into a live action cartoon, or like one of those weird, half awake dreams you get when you’ve got a nicotine patch on (you fellow quitters know exactly what I mean). If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to manage a gym, picture South Park, but instead of foul mouthed fourth graders, it’s a cast of grown adults who should absolutely know better.

Let’s start with the dress code or lack thereof. Apparently “modesty” is a word that doesn’t exist once you walk past the front desk. Doesn’t matter the size, shape, or age, someone’s going to squeeze into something that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. Sometimes I think the mirrors aren’t for checking form, they’re just a stage for people to see how close they can get to being cited for indecent exposure.

Then there’s tanning. You’d think we were running some sort of medical-grade Vitamin D clinic with the way folks try to hop in those beds multiple times a day (AZ law allows once every 24 hours). You tell someone they need to show eye protection before entry and suddenly you’re the bad guy. Like, sorry Karen, I’m not trying to infringe on your freedoms, I’m just trying to keep you from going blind while you roast yourself like a rotisserie chicken.

And oh, the van life/homeless crowd. Ninety-nine percent of them are absolute salt of the earth, polite, and grateful. The other one percent? They’ve clearly binged too many YouTube conspiracy rabbit holes while living out of a Honda Civic. We’ve got not one, but TWO regulars who are convinced they’re being “gang stalked.” If you’ve never had someone corner you by the Smith Machines to explain how shadowy government agents are beaming microwave signals into their fillings while simultaneously leaking top-secret military intel that could apparently get both of us killed, well… congratulations, you’ve never truly experienced existential dread mid-shift. They know things, terrible, terrifying things about the government, the military, and possibly alien overlords, and honestly, hearing it makes me question my own life choices.

Employee training? That’s its own comedy show. I keep having to remind people that we’re in the customer service industry, not the “customer denial” industry. Some employees act like their sole purpose is to invent reasons to tell a member “no” before the sentence is even finished, like they’re interviewing for a job at the DMV. Don’t even get me started on cleaning. Trying to get everyone to wipe down a machine is like asking them to navigate a minefield in clown shoes. It’s painful, ridiculous, and somehow everyone involved acts like it’s completely impossible.

And then there’s the locker room guy, let’s call him Dick. Dick is of the generation that would have fought in the Vietnam war. In the locker room, Dick likes to parade around fully nude with the sausage helicopter on display, apparently under the impression that the locker room is his personal runway. Ask him to follow the basic rule of keeping a towel on, and suddenly you’re the villain in a saga of epic proportions. He absolutely loses his mind, turning a simple request into a full-blown meltdown, as if you’ve personally insulted his very existence. Once he’s done staging his tantrum, he launches into philosophical lectures about the locker room being for men, not “boys or children,” (even though minors are allowed in) questioning why anyone would even be looking at his privates instead of their own business, and seriously wondering if younger men in the world have ever actually seen a penis before. Interacting with Dick is like trying to reason with a cartoon character who’s convinced the universe revolves around him, and every conversation teeters somewhere between comedy and sheer bewilderment. The sad thing is he was seething with anger and poked my chest with his finger when raging at me.

Add it all together and every shift is an episode waiting to be animated. One minute you’re dealing with someone tanning themselves into beef jerky, the next you’re dodging conspiracy theories, the next you’re refereeing between naked protestors and mortified customers, and somewhere in the middle Dick is loudly explaining the rules of the universe to anyone who’ll listen. Honestly, if Trey Parker and Matt Stone ever want new material, they just need to shadow me for a week.

Working at a gym: come for the dumbbells, stay for the circus.

Excellent insight in the drama at the gym. Thanks for sharing. I’m trying to find motivation to get myself back to the YMCA.

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Then there’s tanning. You’d think we were running some sort of medical-grade Vitamin D clinic with the way folks try to hop in those beds multiple times a day (AZ law allows once every 24 hours).

“Tanning” in AZ is kind of like walking to your gang neighborhood mailbox at the end of the street. It takes place whether you want it to or not.
Walk around the block a couple of times, or several trips to the target board at the range in the many hours I spend there, and you risk lobster skin at the elevations Beancooker is referring to.

Now it was different when I was working and had no choice in the matter. Plus being a golfer I had the typical golfers tan. Deeply tanned arms, legs and face…and feet that looked like they got grafted on from a cadaver.

That sounds a lot like being a cop...up to and including the naked guy, lol.

Noah that was one of the best rants on the web. Thanks for the grin first thing this am ( before I go to the gym!).

Righteous!

And I want you to know I'm doing my bit to ease your pain by adhering to a life-long policy of never entering a gym voluntarily.

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gym!

Much enjoyed your diatribe! Nice imagery. Thanks for the grins.

I think this is a picture of our society as a whole. It has been almost 4 decades since I have been a member of a public gym (I do use them at my employer) but it was nothing like that.

My favorite gym memory to date.
I see a woman sitting on the edge of the pool. She is cleaning her hair brush and dropping the hair in the pool.
I decide that my pool time is over for the day. As I leave I mention to the front desk what is going on in the pool area. Yeah, you might want to address that. Her response, "What's her name?".
Me: I'm not sure, have a nice day.

I felt the same way about delivering appliances for sears.

Don't forget the people who go to the gym just to play around on their phones - while sitting on the most popular pieces of equipment.

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Originally posted by mrvmax:
I think this is a picture of our society as a whole. It has been almost 4 decades since I have been a member of a public gym (I do use them at my employer) but it was nothing like that.

Well, I've been going to gyms for three decades, and "random old naked guy wandering around the locker room" has been a constant the whole time.

There's a reason it's a common gym trope.

So if what you say is true, there must have been something in the water starting in the 1990s to suddenly spawn all of them.

Another absolute joy of the locker room is the asshole that sets off body spray like a bug bomb to the point you can’t breathe and you can taste it.

Grew up in Europe, so the naked in the locker room part is pretty much standard and the co-ed nude sauna is also pretty much the norm. What kills me here is 100lbs of ass shoved into 20lbs of spandex and the worst thing of all.....
No matter that there are 1000 signs saying no cell phone usage other than in the lobby I always get 1-2 around me I can hear them thru my headphones. Back home that is instant loss of membership if they have to warn you more than once.

Yech. Ok, so I’d been considering a gym membership for my 13 yo. Now that’s off the menu.

You had me spit taking at "sausage helicopter." Thank you for that.

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Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Don't forget the people who go to the gym just to play around on their phones - while sitting on the most popular pieces of equipment.

Every night, it’s this bullshit! The phone camping is off the charts. I’ve looked around while lifting (APP’s in, phone is in my bag for a music source) and seen 90% of people in the gym staring down at phones like the got damn fucking zombies they are.

Nobody re-racks their gear. And if they can even be bothered to do it, well I guess the fucksticks don’t math. The spindle is clear, 5, 10, 25, 35, 45. So if they do it, it’s on the wrong spindle. Dumbbells, the dumbasses can’t put those back in the right place, if they do it at all.

Then cleaning. I clean every bench/station before I use it, and after. I have to do both because these greasy slimeball sumbitches do not clean anything! I don’t want your got damn filth all over my clothes, skin, and hair. Clean up after yourselves or stay on the couch and finger fuck your ass hole you dirty fuckers!

The clowns add +15 to +45 minutes to my lifting workouts due to their asshatery.

My oldest son worked at a gym while he was home from college, and pretty much everything mentioned so far is what I heard from him.

Wow. The people in my gym are polite, friendly, re-rack, use phones in the sitting area in front of the desk, and are religious about wiping equipment down.

In three years, I have not had a single problem. I will say, some people push the dress code pretty hard, and often it isn't people you want to see pushing it, but if that is the worst of it, I've got no real complaint.

Excellent rant, though Noah. Class A, and I imagine when you aren't laughing, it sucks.