Have you ever walked into a Bally Total Fitness? It's a super creepy technodystopian cult. Everyone facing the same way while subsisting on weird powdered nutrition and making repeated Sisyphean movements while staring zombiefied to Bally-sanctioned TV and wide-smiling propaganda. Must...enrich...the body instrument...for...service to the fatherland. It's all very Teutonic or Prussian or something.
Discipline and Punish.
Everyone's checking out what everyone else is doing. Everyone is aware that other people are looking. So they push harder to prove their dedication. This isn't, by itself, a terrible thing, but it's all totally effed and creepy in the recycled air of this corporate fetish club run by the fitness industrial complex.
Names that come to mind: Jeremy Bentham, Michel Foucault, George Orwell...and you know...those other guys.Heil Fitness!
I know that fitness clubs are bullshit. I know they find every way possible to screw you out of money. But I had 2 months before I had access to the university gym, so I just joined. You have to pay for 2 months minimum. (But they have no contracts now so you're not locked into a membership you don't want! Isn't that so very GENEROUS of them? EXCEPT THEY HAND YOU A CONTRACT AND A CONTRACT ID #. But there are no contracts.) Anyways, I knew canceling would be a bitch, so before I even signed the non-contract contract, I made very sure to grill the rep on exactly how to cancel and when to cancel to avoid getting billed for another month. She told me I just had to cancel before the new billing cycle, which starts on the 15th of the month. I just had to call. But I couldn't cancel in the first 2 weeks because that's the promotional period or whatever. So basically I was like, okay, so I have a 2 week window to cancel.
BULLSHIT.
Because she failed to tell me that I have to send a certified letter in the mail to the corporate offices to cancel my membership. It's the god damned digital age, and they want snail mail. Bullshit. PLUS, she failed to tell me that they need 10 days' notice to cancel. Plus the letter needs time to get there. So basically my 2 week window just went down to like 2 days. But of course I didn't know this. So I called my local club about canceling today, and they even told me, "Call corporate and they'll do it over the phone."
So after being bounced around to different corporate numbers, and not even being transferred to membership services, but being told to hang up and call another number (wtf...again, it's the digital age...you can't connect all the calls on one system? Of course you can. More bullshit and run-around), I can't even talk to a person. Membership services has like 4 automated options, most of which are about making payments. I push the key for membership cancellations, and all it says is that you have to send a letter. Umm, quoi?
So I called my local club again and bullied the drones to let me speak to the general manager. At first he reiterated that I need to send a certified letter in the mail, because the corporate office can't cancel over the phone because they "don't have the technology yet." BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I actually laughed at him. At this point he gave in and admitted that this is bullshit and that HE BELONGS TO A DIFFERENT GYM. He's worked for Bally for many years, and he's the god damned general manager of a location, and HE BELONGS TO A DIFFERENT GYM!!!!!!
So finally he told me to choose the option for auto-debit on the membership services menu, because that actually sends me to a person (because they'll talk to you if it means taking more of your money). So I press 3 and get transferred to a billing representative. This is the gist of our conversation:
ME: Hi Bally, I need to cancel my membership, and I'm really not going to play this run-around game. Just do it.
BALLY REP: Umm well you need to send a letter in the mail to corporate.
ME: Yeah, umm, that's bullshit. It's 2010. Don't believe you. Cancel it right now.
BALLY REP: Well, okay, I can cancel it right now. But I'll need to collect another month's membership fees.
ME: WTF? WHY? I've paid for 2 months and used LESS THAN ONE.
BALLY REP: Well we need 10 days notice to cancel, and by that time, it will be a new billing period.
ME: First of all, I was told I could cancel right away over the phone, so that was obviously a lie. Second of all, why do you need 10 days notice if you can cancel right now?
BALLY REP: Well it takes 10 days for us to process the cancellation.
ME: BUT YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT NOW.
BALLY REP: (confused) Well...we need 10 days notice.
ME: BUT YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT NOW.
BALLY REP: Well I can only do it right now if you give us another month's membership fee.
ME: BUT IT'S BEFORE THE NEW BILLING CYCLE.
BALLY REP: But we need 10 days notice.
ME: For what!? You're cancelling the thing RIGHT NOW. What are the extra 10 days for? So you can reflect on the cancellation?
BALLY REP: Umm I don't know...I just need $29.
ME: I hate you and you're stealing from me. This is racketeering. Tell your bosses they'd fit right into Chicago politics. Just charge my credit card and I never want to speak to anyone at your company again.
BALLY REP: I need your credit card number.
ME: What do you mean you need my credit card number!? You have it! You autodebit the shit out of me!
BALLY REP: Well I don't personally have it.
ME: AHHHHHHHHH!
I mean, I did apologize to her, saying that I know that she's not the one who creates the policies. And then I pulled out my super passive aggressive shaming techniques. "I'm sorry that you work for a company that doesn't give you the tools to do your job effectively." I love saying that. I mostly say it because I know that my call will be listened to by higher-ups because they pay attention to the crazies and angries. It gets out my aggression at the company while letting the poor drones know that I don't blame them for their complete lack of authority. I've been there. I've worked in plenty of retail and customer service jobs. I know what it's like to have your hands tied by corporate policy. That being said, I'm not just going to bend over because her job sucks.
So, Bally, you have my extra $29 dollars. I hope you get a paper cut and die of gangrene. You suck. Or, in Orwellian Newspeak, you are double-plus ungood.
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