I’ve been at the place two weeks and I’m going insane.
Without giving too much away I’m at a budget gym and have like 80% students who attend.
I don’t know what avenue to go down. Signs? Asking members to report people? Getting members to challenge people who don’t re rack them?
I spend half my time picking up everyone else’s shit.
Any ideas would be great.
11 comments
You’re fighting a losing battle to be honest.
I put them back properly and if I feel like procrastinating between sets I’ll even reorder them for the hell of it, but I go to the gym to unwind so I’m usually not in a rush.
It’s the people that treat it like a mission that tend to ditch them and move on to the next thing, and that’s at least half of all gym goers.
Challenge members as you see them walk off.
Put them back yourself.
You can try signs, alternatively if you want people being challenged you need a staff member monitoring or CCTV and retroactive challenging for staff (not a great option) it’s not your members place to enforce rules like this. Too much risk of someone taking offence at a random member of the public telling them what to do and going off on them.
The most effective would be to withdraw membership for persistent offenders. Or make membership fees conditional on this, and increase if you don’t/
I cannot see it happening though. Students if they are 80% of the gym membership would go bleating and claiming discrimination on the grounds that their mental health was affected or some other reason.
Next time you see one do it drag him into the middle of the gym and give him a proper good kicking in full view of the other members.Once you’ve made an example of few perpetrators word will get round of what happens to those who don’t rack the weights properly.
Is the gym otherwise clean and tidy? People make more mess in already messy places. People litter where there’s already litter etc.
A couple of things.
Look for common areas where the weights are collecting. Put a rack there. People are inherently lazy and if there’s even a slight barrier for them doing a task, they won’t do it.
Second – consequences for those who you see not re-racking. This will involve you or other members of staff being on the floor but people need to be called out for not being responsible. Especially if people are leaving bars loaded.
It’s funny because I’ve been to gyms where no one would dare leave the weights out, and others in the same chain where it’s a major problem. It’s weird how it happens, I think it just becomes the culture of that particular gym. If anything I’ve noticed more high end gyms had a worse problem.
I think signs that literally say things like ‘don’t be that guy/a dick, put the weights back!’ are more effective than ‘please re-rack your weights’.
Challenge people who don’t return them, ban re-offenders and make a song and dance on your social media/email distribution; ‘unfortunately we have had to ban a member of the gym today despite several polite warnings about not returning weights. Can I please remind… better environment for everyone…’
For a couple of months take the names of people who are always putting them back and enter them into a raffle for 6 months free membership. Again, shout about it on your social media.
Hopefully you’ll create a culture where the people leaving them out are a bit self conscious of doing it.
Find the biggest person in the gym, have a word, and get him/her to shout very loudly in a very pissed off voice “Who hasn’t put the weights back?”.
Worked at the one I went to.
An assistant manger you say? Jesus.