Gyms, Work

I'm officially a gym member. Benefitness - the cheapest of the lot. I visited Fitness First, and they sat me down for something like an interview:

'These are the 4 proven reasons why people join gyms. Which one would you say you were? No, it has to be just one out of the four. I'll give you a moment to think about it. Ok, 'health'? Could you expand on that?'

'So you used to play netball. Now how happy with your level of fitness were you when you played netball? Would you say your goal is to get back to that? Or would you like to exceed that level? Ok, what timeframe are you looking at to Meet Your Goal?'

Fitness First did have awesome facilities, including electronic lockers, tiny fans on each treadmill and a huge group fitness room. Benefitness is more like, 'Eh. We don't have lockers as such, just dump your bag at the back of the class.' And let me tell you, there was no interview or even real orientation scenario. But, for $8.95/week, who's complaining? I have to pay a once-off extra to have a session where someone goes through all the machines with me and gives me a personal plan or something, but they did waive the joining fee and I figure its worth it anyway. So far I've mainly just been going to classes.

For the record: Fitness First was $22.95/week, $100 joining fee (which I probably could have got for $9, though) and a $70 'admin' fee.

Fernwood would have been my other choice - I've been there a fair few times as a trial member and it's a nice place - big tv screen in the cardio room, refrigerated work-out towels, complimentary toiletries, free breakfast, good aircon. It's also a good balance between 'whatever, join if you want' Benefitness and 'hey there KHERE! It's Evan calling from Fitness First! How's it going mate? Have you given any more thought to our membership offer?' Fitness First. But even the student discount membership at Fernwood (with no joining fee) would have been $19.80/week. Can I justify an extra $566/year for MusicMax and the comforting knowledge that, if I ever showered at the gym, I would have access to a hairdryer? Unfortunately I can't. Maybe when I'm one of those rich career women who has a different Portman's outfit for every day.

I've only done two classes at Benefitness so far - Circuit and Step. Big thumbs up for circuit. The first time was the worst, mainly because the instructor came off as kind of a bitch. She knew I had never done the class before. Without saying a word to me or anyone else though, she charged into the room with her g-string under tights and was all like 'Rawr! Let's get MOVING!', launching into aerobics moves straight away. The class is basically aerobics or whatever, but with short frequent intervals using the machines around the edge of the room. Well, that's what I came to understand after everyone latched themselves to machines, no thanks to her explanation. It reminded me a bit of playing 'musical chairs' as a kid - ladidah, da da, quickdive for that machine that you know how to use!

Today I did the class again with a different instructor who I found much more personable. The stuff we did in the non-aerobics part of the class was a fair bit different to the first time, actually - I wonder if they change it up a lot, or if it just depends on the instructor. We did push-ups and tricep dips today, and hello my chicken wings may be feeling that tomorrow.

As for the other class - Step. Well. Let's just say it inspired me to look up the 'Nine Types of Intelligence'. Hey, step-class members, you'll just have to believe me when I say that I'm quite competent at using my Linguistic, Inter-personal, Intra-Personal, Logical-Mathematical and even Naturalist, Existential and Musical intelligences! What's that? All I need for a step class are Kinesthetic and Spatial intelligences? Huh. About that. When God was handing out coordination I guess I thought he was giving out, er, mudcake. And asked for a small serve. Or whatever.

(Shut up. I totally could have proven my mad linguistic punning skillz there if I had wanted to.)

In other news, there's a brewing bitch-storm at work. One girl got fired and now everyones clawing for her shifts. Well that's one facet of it. Also relevant: the new award which means we have to get paid more next year, which means the business will have to completely redesign itself to manage the burden of wages. Also: the possibility of my cluey workmate 'A' leasing the business and the things he will change, namely the mindset of 'these are my shifts so I can sit on my ass and be rude to customers and not worry about losing hours'. Also: customer complaints about a certain staff member. Also: resentment at 'A' for wanting an equal share of hours now (he was on less before), instead of dividing the new shifts evenly among all staff members, good and bad. Also: is the manager playing a big lateral game of chess and picking off staff one by one so he doesn't have to fire people come the new year? Also: I'm technically owed money due to some weird legal thing - the collective agreement we worked under for 2 years was found void, so we say everyone was retrospectively paid under their previous agreements, except I didn't work there long enough to have a previous agreement. So I should have been paid under some ancient award for 'hostels' that housed people fresh out of jail. Which meant that I should have been paid penalties. Or something.

Got that? Work is full of excitement at the moment. And that's not even counting the guest who reckons he's in the mafia.

Anyway, I'd better get some sleep so I can handle that funhouse. Psst, don't tell anyone, but I've found a 'learn the moves' step video. If New Zealander Mark Nu'u can teach me the basics, I may be back in that class soon, improving my futness.

--khere is a nonsensical translation.