Corporate Bullies: An open letter to Bally Total Fitness

Hi, I'm back. I know, it's been a while. I did make the necklace for Marilyn and took a picture to post here, but I'm at work so I'll do another post from home so you all can see it.

Anyway... I'm attempting to cancel my gym membership because my new job has a workout room at the office that I can use for FREE! ... and I probably used my membership 40 times within the last 3.5 years. Worst and most expensive "investment" I've ever made. Probably comes out to $200 per visit. UGH. So, on top of me hating that they made me sign a 3-year contract that you can't get out of unless you DIE, I hate Bally because they are making it totally impossible for me to cancel my membership. Did I mention I hate them?!

And now, my open letter to Bally Total Fitness:

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To: Bally Total Fitness Member Services
P.O. Box 1090 Norwalk, CA 90651-1090

From: J

Date: December 2, 2009

RE: Cancellation of membership (#xxxxxx)

I need to cancel my membership (#xxxxx) to Bally Total Fitness as my new employer has a workout facility in our office that I may use at no charge. I am past my initial 3 year contract, and it is my understanding that I am now month-to-month. Therefore there should be no problem in cancelling my membership.

I attempted to cancel my membership both through the BTF website and by phone. I received NO response to my request via the website form. I called the number provided on the website, and was provided no option to cancel “just because”. The only options given are moving to an area with no club within 25 miles, medical reasons and “buyer’s remorse”. So after selecting both of those options (during two different phone calls), I waited through all the inapplicable info about mailing in letters to get to the part where I could select to speak to a customer service representative. Then I was informed that the wait to speak to someone was longer than 25 minutes, so I would be put in a queue. I found that to be quite ridiculous, so I hung up and called my local club. They informed me that I can only cancel my membership by calling the corporate office. I called the corporate number again, sat through the inapplicable messages again, and was then told by the automated system that the wait to speak to someone was more than 30 minutes, so the call was dropped. 5 minutes later I called back and received the same treatment – call dropped. So I submitted a second request through the BTF website. Then I attempted one more time a half hour later… same thing.

This is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable “customer service”. Like every other service provider, you should at least allow an option to request a cancellation through your website. A request that you should actually respond to and act on. And dropping the calls of people who call in to corporate is unbelievable – first you require that I call corporate to cancel my membership, and then you make it absolutely impossible to get through to someone at corporate. At least provide the option for callers to leave a message for customer service to return. But I imagine if I did finally get to speak with someone, I’d get stuck with a sales person who will give me a long spiel attempting to convince me to not cancel my membership despite the fact that I don’t want to hear it, and don’t need a membership any longer, AND have every right to cancel since my contract is up. I know how these things work… I have dealt with pushy sales people before. And I don’t want to deal with this now. My membership needs to be cancelled and it needs to be hassle free. And at this point, I will NEVER consider membership with Bally again due to your horrendous “customer service”.


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I hope you all never have to deal with this crap, but we all know that's wishful thinking. Oooh, I should totally write a letter to the BBB too. They listen!

Peace & love.
J

Murphy's Law

Since I've finished studying (hopefully. I still haven't gotten my exam score yet) I've decided that I'm going to start being more creative, reading more, eat healthier, and go back to the gym. Today was finally the day that I decided to go back to the gym. I logged no more than 12 minutes on the elliptical machine when I got a sharp pain in my lower back and could no longer take deep breaths. yeah, wtf?! Believe me, I was going slowly in an effort to NOT hurt myself since I haven't worked out in months. Apparently my efforts weren't successful. I found some trainers and told them about my situation to see what their thoughts were. The front desk girl suggested that I was dehydrated and the trainer thought I'd either popped a rib out of place or pulled a muscle. He showed me some stretches to do, which I did, but they didn't make the pain go away completely. So, I got in 12 minutes of exercise. I think my body hates me.

Listen to your body

A few weeks ago my neck went out again. I was out of commission for two and a half days; just lying in bed or on the couch. I was pretty angry about it. I thought that this year's busy season would be more tolerable and less stressful because I only had one client this year whereas last year I had 4-5. Unfortunately I was wrong. In exploring the situation, I discovered that I don't really express anger when I feel or experience it. I store it all in my neck and then eventually it "boils over" and I wake up with nearly unbearable pain. I couldn't believe I'd "allowed" this to happen again.

Last year when I suffered this neck pain and ended up in the hospital, I didn't go to the gym for a month or two at the advice of my physical therapist. This was to allow my neck to heal because we thought that the pain was caused by a subluxed vertebra. This has never been confirmed nor denied, but after talking to my chiropractor, I'm beginning to wonder if it is a subluxed vertebra or just a shit-ton of tension.

So this time I asked my chiropractor, "Can I go to the gym and/or exercise? or do I need to take it easy for a few weeks to heal?" and his response: "Listen to your body. If you want to exercise, then exercise. If you start to feel pain, soreness, tension, then stop and take it easy."

What a novel idea! I am amazed that we, as a culture, tend to not listen to our bodies. It seems so obvious. It should be common sense. But, no. We push ourselves, overwork ourselves, over-eat, under-eat... and the list goes on. So now I'm listening to my body. I'm working on listening to myself so that I can be effective at work and in life!

Peace & love.
J

2008 is all about me

I started "going to therapy" back in October, and for some weird reason I think it's motivated me to get going to to the gym. I went three times the week before Christmas, once last week and yesterday. That might not seem like a whole lot, but considering that's more than I'd gone in the past 2-3 months combined, I'd say I'm making some major progress. (I got sick last week and that's why I didn't go any more than the once. And I didn't go tonight cause my neck hurts for some reason and I just wanted to rest.) It's not that I'm discussing exercising or even losing weight with my counselor, rather I guess the discussions we are having is motivating me to do more for me. So, 2008 is going to be about doing things for me!

I'm going to go to the gym regularly. Get in shape. Hopefully lose about 40 lbs! Indulge in being creative - making jewelry and taking more photographs. Pass those last 2 pesky exams! Pay off my debt. Be more social.

It's going to be an awesome year!

Peace and love.
J