There are definitely moments in the week, in each day actually, that I feel like I am more than just a coach, and less of a coach too for that matter. Today was one of those days when I craved to just be a coach. Today I felt like a mother, correction a Korean mother and I say that because God knows no Polish mother would be picking up kids. My mother used to throw my laundry on the front lawn for all the neighbours and whomever to see if I left it down in the laundry room for more than a day or two.
I know it is a part of my job and I know that I am just venting here but it's so frustrating to have to constantly pick up and tidy up after members when it's things I feel I'm constantly calling them out on. For instance the boxing gloves. We provide club gloves for all members to use so that they don't have to buy their own and I've put a sign in both English and Korea that reminds them nicely to keep the glove wrist bands open so that they can dry out for the next person. It's not a big thing to do but doing so extends the life span of the gloves and it also means the next person doesn't have to put their hands in a glove full of whomever's sweat; that's nasty!!! But no matter how many signs I put, how many times I remind members and how many times members seeing me personally fixing all the gloves, everyday there's half a dozen or so cases when members just throw the gloves on the shelf so carelessly. I am almost tempted to put a sign that reads "if you abuse your using privileges then you're going to lose your using privileges". Gloves that were just so carelessly thrown on the shelves, medicine balls left on the floor, used towels that were thrown at the laundry basket but that didn't quite get in, and don't even get me started about those dang water cups! "It comes with the job", I constantly have to remind myself as I also have to remind myself that no one is as possibly protective and as super sensitive about our club as Snickers and I are. You know I can't even walk from one end of the club to the other without rearranging something, noting some kind of renovation or clean-up I should do. Doesn't matter if it's in the dead of the day or dead of night.
It's the little things that get me but it's these little things that sometimes eat me up.
I was exhausted today. I had spent a good chunk of my afternoon cleaning up what should have been a minor mess but evolved into a big mess in one of the changerooms. Beyond closing the doors at night and vacuuming it in the morning, I never go into the changerooms, or the locker room for that matter so how was I to know there was any kind of problem. I would have liked for a Hulkie to have told me instead of a visitor spotting it. It is on our consent form that all Hulkies have signed that states for them to note to us if anything is broken, needs repairing or whatnot. No one had told me and so it was via an embarrassing moment that I stumbled across a problem.
"It's part of the job", Snickers reminded me and I know. You have to take the good with the bad but I was hoping those Pesky Parkers would be all the bad.
I take my business way to personal but then again my business is my pleasure and my pleasure is my business so of course it's going to be personal.
No sooner had I woken up from a crash-from-frustrations-and-exhaustion but then one Hulkie approached me and told me one of the foot holders on one rowing machine was broken. I was so happy at her news, not at the fact I now have to spend money for a replacement but because she had told me. Next month's fee for her will be greeted with a huge discount as will the fee of two others -- one who I saw spraying down a yoga mat with the cleaner and one who I witnessed rearranging some kettlebells that others had so carelessly put in the weight training area.
Many of our members are super sweet to me, this is definitely true, but you some days you're just in a funk and things, the little things, eat you up. Today I unfortunately got caught up in the sour moments and they totally distracted me. I wish they hadn't and I know tomorrow I'll be over it but today I felt consumed by it. I felt like a nagging mother and I refuse to be anyone's mother. I don't even consider myself the mother to my pups. They're my friends and we're all one big happy family, like siblings and cousins. The title "mother" does not sit well with me so I definitely don't want to feel like one. Today that's all I really felt like, a mother, and it drove me bonkers. I know I have to not take things so personal when it comes to my business but it's next to impossible to do so when you consider I've put everything I've got into making our club. The line between business and pleasure is pretty nonexistent now and perhaps that's where the problem stems.
No comments:
Post a Comment