Dear Nice Employees of My Gym,
You're all friendly and cute gals who are just trying to do your jobs. I get it. But when I say that I don't have a job and am not receiving a pay check and therefore all of my money is going towards things like rent and food and gas and that I couldn't possibly afford to have a personal trainer or renew my membership at the present time, what I actually mean is that I don't have a job and am not receiving a pay check and therefore all of my money is going towards things like rent and food and gas and that I couldn't possibly afford to have a personal trainer or renew my membership at the present time. I don't think I could be any clearer. And so I would really love it if you would stop asking me if I want a personal trainer or to renew my membership. Because I can't. Really. Knocking $50 off the renewal price is not going to help. I'm serious. No, really, I mean it. Yes, I understand that the "special deal" is for today only. But as I explained to the last 4 women who have called and every person who has asked at the front desk and that trainer who comes up to me at least once a week when I'm on the elliptical, even while wearing head phones and focusing intently on Regis and Kelly, to ask if I'm ready to sign up for a training session, it would be financially impossible for me to do it right now. If, say, you made the renewal free, then I could do it. But anything above free is not going to work for me.
And maybe you could come up with some sort of system so that I don't have to explain every time I go in. Maybe stickers or something. Or sweatbands. That's it, color coded sweatbands. Green for, "Interested. Ask again later." And red for "Back-off!" Mine would be red, if you hadn't guessed already. I like you. I like working out. I like that my renewal isn't until October and that I don't have to worry about renewing just yet. But I also like having breakfast and electricity. You understand, right?
Regards,
Rachel
5 comments:
Sales people never understand. I'm pretty sure they just completely block out what you say the whole time, and then try to sale it to you in a different way. So annoying.
P.S. The whole Jeremy and Kelly blog thing is pretty hilarious and I am going to add the statcounter.com as well. Even though I will probably find that not even my family looks at my blog, and find out that people don't like to look at pictures of other people's nieces and nephews.
What you need to do is just repeat "No,no, no...no, no, no." Over and over again with no explanation at all. Then once they have started their third attempt, start jerking and rolling your eyes around. Finish up with "your constant questioning is now giving me a seizure*. Do you have (stated amount of membership renewal) so I can go to the emergency room?" I think you would only have to resort to the seizure thing once. They would tell their friends that work there and make a note in your file and I'm sure even the phone calls would stop.
* Personal apology to anyone suffering with seizures. I know it is serious.
You could take the Seinfeld approach and ask for their home number. You can say, "How about if I finish working out here and give you a call when I'm ready?" And call them every night for a week during dinner time. Maybe they'd clue in that you're really annoyed with their pestering.
I think you should hold your hands up in front of you and widen your eyes when they approach, and then shriek NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! as soon as they begin speaking. Run away if necessary to give more heft to the point. They won't bother you anymore.
Rachel, you know as well as I that this is simply the product of public education. Students spend year after year after year in the classroom ignoring instructions and asking for them to be repeated again and again and again, and then they stare blankly after receiving the instructions only to shrug their shoulders and determine that they will ask again later (all the time hoping that the next time they ask they will hear something different, such as, "You know what, forget about the assignment after all--I'm going to give you extra credit because you asked the same question again for the tenth time"). Sales people are the professional versions of those students. The cure is simple: mention the word "essay" and they will clam right up!
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