custodian

instructor

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In-Shape Health Clubs

Before I started working at In-Shape, I spoke with several members of the housekeeping team.  They said the job was very relaxed and minimal work would be required.  Oh, how wrong they were.

I've noticed that there are basically two types of workers that the housekeeping department attracts: (1) people who barely do anything and (2) people who actually do what is required of the job.  There is no in-between, at least not that I've seen.  

The former can often be heard talking about how this is the easiest job they've ever had.  They slowly stroll through the gym during their shift, occasionally emptying the trash bins and refilling the paper towel dispensers.  If they're feeling up to it, they might wipe down the counters and mirrors in the locker room.  Those who are still in school might knock out some homework if their shift is going slow.  These people are always full of energy, stress-free, and chatting up the gym members.   

The latter, unfortunately, have to make up for everything.  Emptying the trash and wiping counters is only one aspect of the job.  Those are tasks that are meant to be completed in one or two minutes, not stretched out to over an hour.  In fact, you should be doing those things multiple times in one shift.  Gym-goers can be quite messy.  Members are constantly leaving paper towels on the floor, not putting weights back, moving gym equipment around, spilling pre-workout drinks/protein shakes, leaving towels on the ground.  In the bathroom, members throw around toilet seat covers and tissue paper, discard garbage on the floor, leave pieces of feces on the bench.  If you don't stay on top of those things, the gym can get trash really quickly.  

But there's more.  You also need to make sure all of the main exercise floors are clean.  There are different ways that you need to treat each floor.  Sweep/vacuum and spot clean the padded floors with a rag.  Use a wet mop on the tile floors.  Sweep and use solution on the polished floors.  Dust mop the hardwood floors, making sure to pick up all of the hair that accumulates.  Vacuum the carpeted areas.  Then you need to go back and make sure to get all of the dust out of the corners of each room and clean out the vents.  Wipe the sweat off of the mirrors and light switches.  Then you need to go to the weight room and pick up all of the paper towels that are left behind the machines.  Clear out the water bottle holders on all of the cardio machines.  Wipe sweat off of the treadmills and bikes.  Put away the plates that people leave on the bench press. Then you need to check the sauna and make sure that people didn't take or leave any equipment in there.  Go to the pool and test/balance the water and record the data.   Go to the showers and make sure that the nearby flooring is not too slippery.  Empty the hampers and put laundry in the washer/dryer.  Make sure soap dispensers are working/full.  Clean hair from the sinks.  And then, if you have time, make sure the closets and employee area are tidy.  After all of that is taken care of, then you can relax and roam the gym floor.  All of these things need to be done everyday and this list of tasks is meant to be broken up between the various shifts.  But if you're the only one who does the work, you will be working for hours nonstop.  If you work fast enough, you might be able to complete everything in one shift.      

The worst part is that there's not much incentive for housekeepers to work hard.  People aren't exactly lining up to scrub toilets for minimum wage.  It does help that everyone is so nice though.  The other staff members know how hard the job can be and they try to remain supportive and defend me against complaints about the cleanliness of the facility.  Fortunately, I am lucky enough to have excellent managers.  I know that their hands are tied to a certain extent and that there is only so much that they can do to get productivity out of the housekeeping team without alienating them. 
 And even though the other housekeepers don't do much, they are all nice people.  I suppose that counts for something!  If it weren't for the positive work environment, my job would be an absolute nightmare.  But even with all that positivity, the daily stresses and physical toll of the job are simply not worth the minimum wage.  I guess that I could just relax like everyone else on the team, but I don't have it in me to do that.  As a fitness enthusiast myself, I simply care too much about the gym to allow it to fall into disarray under my watch.

I worked in the kids club for a year and a half trying to gain a full time position which was not possible because they only supplied 4 hour shifts either in the morning or the afternoon and would not let you do a split shift unless you were a lead. They picked there leads by favoritism and It was an issue. Half of the leads I dealt with didn’t know how to make the schedule and Change the schedule so often throughout the week because of unreliable employees and it causes confusion and people to get in trouble for “no shows” on days they thought they didn’t work because of the “finalized” schedule that was put out the first time. Also leads took advantage of position to leave the kids club room to get away from work leaving myself with no help in hectic situations. Getting left in a room with 15 kids by yourself and get yelled at by parents that are flooding in and have to be put on a waiting list and get upset cause they can’t take the class that they came for. Oh I forgot to mention that the limit of kids per kids club employee is 10 for safety reasons but management pushes you to take 15 just cause they don’t want there members to get mad and not come back. They wont send help when you have 3 or more infants screaming bloody murder and you have 12 more kids running around causing trouble or trying to escape the room and you are over time for your 10 minute break. Sometimes you would work a whole 4 hour shift by yourself and not get your 10 minute break because they were so low on employees to send help to watch kids while your out. Irresponsible parents that come daily and know the closing times or go passed there 2 hours limit will pick up there kids an hour late when there are people waiting to come in on a waiting list or when your trying to close the kids club at the end of your shift, getting left by yourself overtime and by yourself and with only there kid who is tired and asking you why there mom or dad hasn’t come to get them yet at 8:30 at night on a school night. I had a manager pop there head in the door one time to ask me if I need anything and I replied with saying I need to go to the bathroom and they replied by saying they couldn’t stay to help but they just wanted to ask and then they left. I would never recommend anyone to work in the kids club at Inshape. The kids are fun and great people and I loved all of them but the job itself was horrible and overwhelming and unjust. The parents and the workers and management made it unbearable. All of the job was always like this or you would get one random day on a holiday or something and there would be no kids at all and literally be sitting watching Barney for 4 hours doing nothing hoping at least one kid would come in so you don’t feel like you wasted your holiday by just being there. The only time this place was doing what it was suppose to do was when the CEO would come in.

I don't know where to start, I guess a few facts first:

-Turn-over rate for managers is 110%. What that means is: they are unable to keep up with the pace of management personnel whom quit the company to seek out better employment elsewhere.

-With 60 clubs and growing, so are the numbers of former hourly employees, over 200 in two years.

Super high pressure work environment; you will work every minute that they can legally get away with. A typical schedule is 9:00-7:00
they force you to take a 2 hour lunch break to keep it legal. 

Very misleading/convoluted systems that change day to day.

Dishonest "Bonus" programs. (you will always be 1 or 2 percent "short" of reaching your monthly goal, So, say goodbye to any bonus you worked 12 hour days trying to achieve.

One of their famous lines you will hear during the first interview is "we promote from within" the truth to that is, they have no choice...hence the high T/O rate.

Just to give you an idea of how greedy the ownership is? the company is worth well over $100 million, they once ran a big social media campaign to gain "likes" on the company Facebook page...

 They promised, to make a donation to the local Food Bank (which, by the way serves the dozens of homeless people that live on the grounds of InShapes Corporate Office) when they get to 1,000 new likes.
What's really pathetic is the tremendous good-willed effort that members put in to help them achieve the 1,000 new like goal, all for the big $500 donation they ended up making.

Sad but true

I love the gym. Health is very important to me, so taking this job at first was very easy. The first problem is that they put you through training which would be great if the focused on some of your everyday tasks, such as how to use the client input system. I was there for about 6 months and never had a 1 on 1 to get me familiar with the system. I had two managers. My first manager was a really understanding guy. I have two boys and he would make the schedule family friendly for all of the counselors there. We would rotate each week( open,mid,closing). Once he left, this other manager came in and completely changed that. I ended up closing every week, even though he knew I was the only one with young kids. One of the things I really don't like is as much as your work our sell, you are going to make very minimal wages. I would calculate how much I made them on recurring monthly memberships, and initial sign-up fees. It is absolutely mind-boggling. I calculated one month making them 6000, which I made about 1400 dollars from. They also have these ridiculous audits you have to pass to see any type of bonus, whether you hit your goal or not. If you are interested in the gym and you find a good manager, this may be the job for you. My experience was not that great, but if you want to try them out, good luck.

This job is a pretty fast pace enviroment, but also can be slow at times. Great way to interact and meet with all different people, probably one of the best things about the job. Meeting nice people, networking with others.Its great way to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I learned a little of everything. The members can be pretty nice but you also get those rude customers aswell. One of the things i learned was how to remain calm and resolve hostile situations. I work the opening early morning shift so its pretty good way to get my day started. I cant really recall any hard things about the job because i was pretty experienced in my field. A typical day at work, i usually start off by coming in turning off the alarm if i get there before house keeping, clock in for work, walk around the club do a walk through, make sure lights and television are all on, turn on my computers, set up register, fold towels, have towels set up for guest as they check in, open up at 4am, check in guest, provide customer service, smile and gret all customers hello and goodbye. The best thing about the job to me is when i get to meet nice people and learn the members on a more social and personal first name bases.

Everyday I would check in members, review accounts to make adjustments such as editing personal information on file or adding additional services, inform members if there is an outstanding balance on account that needs attention and gather payment as soon as possible to avoid cancellation of account. 

I learned a lot about customers, such as what they go through in their daily lives and had opportunities to see friends and meet/make new friends. Also, I learned superior skills on how to lead a team of my own and management skills to advance my knowledge.

As far as management, I had a role model and coach to go to every time which was my operations manager when I was unsure of a subject and how to handle different situations.

I had a great learning experience with each of my co-workers and became really great friends with some. 

Although I had many tasks to complete every day, I enjoyed multi-tasking and always being productive it made my day go by quicker.

I enjoyed coming to work every day to greet customers and get a chance to catch up with friends, it always made my working experience that much more positive.

In-shape Health Club is not a professionally ran health club for members or employees. Each member has to sign up according to the extremely high priced start up fees that can not be justified where the money goes. At In-shape you are taught to misguide information and coerce people into a membership because commissions is the only way to make a living and be what the company considers successful. The most difficult task was asking people to give you referrals to continue you business based of a non-friendly and comfortable environment. Another difficult issue was informing people that the cheapest membership the company was willing to offer is a membership that has your banking information set up for automatic funds transfer; which has been proven to be an issue for costumers as they are double billed monthly. The most enjoyable part was informing people that through moderate physical activity you can get results and live a healthier lifestyle.

Typcal day begins by having a meeting in the office while the maneger shoves membership number demands down your throat that are sent down from corporate. After getting a number beating you proceeed to making 40 phone calls a day to propects ensuring that a high number of them woulld return to buy a membership. Managment is a 2/5 stars most of the time. Co-workers are amazing, you all have the common realization; that you are humans trying to surving another day at In-shape. This common goal sprouts ever lasting friendships. Hardest part of the job is feeling like you forced a sale on a member due to the pressure of getting a sale through the day. On top of that, in order to not get a rundown check, commission sales had to surpass your regular total hourly income for 2 weeks, if you didn't surpass the amount, you didnt get your commission check. If i where completely honest the most enjoyable part of the job was the gym membership or the feeing of giving everyone the peace sign as i walked out the gym on the way home.

A typical day at work consists of walking around and maintaining the cleanliness of the club by picking up such things as trash and used towels, also making sure all dirty towels are being washed so that they can be regimen out to the members. Some things I learned while being there that I had not known how to do before was clean all makes of surfaces, take pool reading for pools and hot tubs to make sure the chemicals are safe at all times for people to keep using them. With my time at inshape I got to meet a couple different managers there that were all nice and worked hard and they also made sure to try and give there employees either time off for events that we may have going on outside of work and really work with your schedule the best they can to accommodate you. Overall I enjoyed my time with the company and I would recommend them to a family member or friend that was looking for a job.

Member Services management is generally nice.  They admitted the training is not as good as they would like it to be, so the expectations and directions regarding what is necessary to reach those expectations are not very clear.  Your supervisor might just tell you that you are doing a bad job, but not outline how to improve.  The supervisor might also look for people to blame for a mistake but not have answers when asked what exactly the mistake was and what to do differently next time.  But order you to sign a form saying you were "counseled" even though you were not even told what the mistake was.  In general, everyone does not accept ownership of their shortcomings/mistakes and always look for excuses to blame other people on their own team or on other teams.  The default response is, "the club staff messed it up."  The employee turnover is very high.  The benefits are costly.  Most people used their spouse's health insurance.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Custodian 97 salaries reported	$17.47 per hour
Instructor 96 salaries reported	$21.75 per hour
Ambassador 79 salaries reported	$16.90 per hour
Team member 71 salaries reported	$16.90 per hour
Swim instructor 34 salaries reported	$20.80 per hour

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