Page 8 of Escape to the Country

‘Hi there, can I offer you a free pass to Gym Fit?’

She turned on me. ‘You calling me fat, you cheeky cow?’

‘God no, not at all. I just thought you might like to come and try us out. Maybe grab the chance to have a bit of “me” time.’

‘No! Fuck off!’

Charming! I looked over at my team who were getting similar abuse from passers-by. I couldn’t believe the reaction we were getting. Why couldn’t people just be nice?

I rounded my team up and decided that we’d go to the nearest coffee shop to warm up and get out of the rain. They told me that this was quite usual behaviour from the general public and that they rarely got people to even take a flyer, let alone come for a free trial.

Downhearted, we headed back to the gym and the manager asked how we’d got on.

‘Completely bloody awful, to be honest,’ I replied.

‘Oh well, tomorrow is another day. Perhaps you could try a different town centre or a different approach. The one you are using is clearly not working.’

Slightly disappointed by the lack of encouragement and empathy, I found the sales call that took place at 5p.m. wasn’t the most positive, either. The area manager ended by saying that there would be consequences for the teams that had the fewest sales at the end of the week and that our priority was roleplay again the following day as we were obviously not getting our sales patter right. Great. Now I had that to look forward to.

I realised that at Ronington’s, I was pretty much left to my own devices. I worked out my own plan and just got on with it, without any supervision and certainly no need to do roleplay. I was thirty-seven, for goodness’ sake. Did I really have to sit and do roleplay with a team to work out how to get new customers? There were so many other ideas I had that I knew would work.

That evening, I got my notepad and pen and sat for an hour and a half jotting down a ton of ideas, planning to bring them up during the conference call the next day. That lifted my spirits a little. After all, PR and marketing was what I did, and I knew that I knew my stuff. I went to bed that night feeling a little more positive than I had earlier that day.

On the conference call the following morning, I suggested that we could contact some of the larger companies in the vicinity of the gym and ask whether they had an open day, or a staff health day, or whether we could introduce one. Maybe a health check or even just give out our free day passes and ask people to come along and see what facilities were on offer. I was met with deathly silence.

‘Thank you for your input, Madison, but I’d rather you just got on with what I’ve asked you to do rather than waste time coming up with random ideas. You are paid to do as you are told. Please do it.’

Slightly disillusioned that I wasn’t using my skills to the full, which I understood were the reason that they’d taken me on, when I went back to the sales office, I made an executive decision and decided to sit down with my team and chat the ideas through with them. They loved my ideas. We were all fired up and cracked on with making calls to local businesses, setting ourselves little targets along the way, and it was fun. I thought that everyone loved a bit of initiative, and when I could show her our results, the area manager would be really impressed.

On the 5p.m. call, when she asked about our success for the day, I told her we’d made several appointments for people to visit the following day because of the activity we’d done. There was deathly silence for about thirty seconds.

‘I told you what to do today! Did you not listen? What on earth did you think you were doing?’ she bellowed down the phone line. I was mortified, knowing that ten other membership managers were on the call.

‘I used my initiative and we got results,’ I stuttered out.

‘I have never known anyone as insubordinate. I’ll be coming to your gym tomorrow and I’d like to see you privately.’

Well, I’d obviously made a cracking impression on her. Why hadn’t I just done what she’d told me? Why had I thought that my ideas were better than hers? I could have kicked myself. I just wanted to do a good job, and that was what I explained to her when she came to the office on Thursday afternoon.

‘I’ve decided that you and your membership team will report to Dudley Gym Fit tomorrow morning at sixa.m. and you will do an hour’s boxercise class.’

I giggled but when she glared right back at me I realised it was no joke. Dudley gym was about forty-five minutes’ travelling time from my house at that time in the morning, which would mean leaving home at 5.15a.m. at the latest. Surely she wasn’t serious.

‘Perhaps after that, the next time you’re thinking of using your initiative you might think again and do as you were told in the first place. We don’t pay you to think.’

She was only about twenty-eight, clearly one of those who was keen to get on and push her way through the ranks, not caring who she left behind in her wake. I’d seen that type before and suddenly from nowhere, I found my voice. She might be my boss, but that didn’t mean she had the right to speak to me this way. I decided I’d try to explain once more.

‘I was using my initiative, that’s all. I have a PR and marketing background and know that these things work. In fact, we have made ten appointments this morning alone with local businesses who are really interested in us working with their staff. If we can help them to have healthy staff, it’s great for their absence figures, and if they get benefits from being a member of the gym as part of their wages, people are going to want to work there. That’s had more effect than standing in the street handing out leaflets. I’m sorry, but I think that to be punished in this way is a little unfair.’Bloody massively unfairis what I wanted to say, but thought I’d better tone it down a bit.

‘Well, your team will have you to thank for getting up early and training, won’t they?’ She was venomous. How did someone like her get a job like that? My blood was beginning to boil. I made a split-second decision which I knew I might come to regret, but right then I didn’t care.

‘I’m sorry, but I won’t be going.’

‘Youwillgo!’ she yelled at me.

‘I’m sorry but to be totally honest, this is probably the crappiest job I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve had to dress up like Shrek, stand in the pouring rain, been told to fuck off, been told I have a fat arse, and all that when the pay is rubbish. I’ve tried to get new members into the gym but we can’t make people come doing it your way and then, when we find a way that does work, you think it’s OK to punish us for that. No one deserves that.’ I was on a roll now and the words wouldn’t stop pouring from my mouth.

‘The people that you have working in the team here are bloody good people and this is how you treat them? They don’t deserve it. I don’t want to work for a company like this and certainly not for a person like you.’

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