Even though the name Glitter Gym no longer makes sense in the modern world, I’ve decided to keep the name when I add new gym stories.
After my smallish gym closed in April, my membership was transferred to the huge Signature LA Fitness. I mentioned it briefly in New Gym, Old Mistakes.
Although I miss being able to walk across the street, I now have a lot more equipment, a sauna, and a pool. It even has an indoor basketball court. Every time I go, I find new equipment.
I am mostly happy with my new gym, but the more time I spent there the more I noticed that equipment isn’t being repaired as quickly as I expected for such a big chain. My old gym with its limited resources seemed to do a better job keeping things clean and working.
I work out in the 5 AM hour. Even though I moved to the West Coast in 2000, I jokingly tell people I’m still on “East Coast time” and haven’t adjusted yet.
At 5 AM the gym is a mess. Trash on the floor. Dumbbells and plates spread all over the gym. This hasn’t bothered me, but I do find it odd. Every gym I’ve been to has always had a closing procedure that made the gym presentable to the morning lifters.
Shortly after my membership began, they stopped offering a towel service for free. No problem. I can bring my towel on the day I go to the sauna. I can see the staff spends way too much time doing laundry. Now maybe they can devote resources to the gym itself. That was the hope. It hasn’t worked out that way.
A few of the drinking fountains are defective. The keypad to enter the pool area is broken and the door is propped open with a dumbbell. I saw an old guy leave a bathroom stall upset that there was no toilet paper. The longer I spend at the gym, the more I notice that not only are things falling apart but they aren’t getting fixed on time if at all. They have job listings posted on the front door, so it is clear they are understaffed.
Recently I went into the sauna. There was one guy there already. A second guy enters with a backpack. He checks the door to see if anyone is looking in. No one is outside the door, so he asks the first guy if he “has it”. The first guy reaches under his towel and hands the backpack guy a small package.
What the hell is going on?
The backpack guy pulls out a cordless drill and asks me to move. He opens the package which were long screws. He grabs a board that was standing in the corner and proceeds to repair the sauna. After reattaching the first board, he adds more screws to other loose boards. It took him maybe 7 minutes to restore the sauna.
After the repairs, I got the backstory. For six months the gym hadn’t responded to requests to fix the loose boards in the sauna. These two guys had enough and decided to take matters into their own hands. One guy bought the screws and the other guy brought in his drill and did the repairs.
I’ve been going to gyms for 30 years now. This is the first time I’ve seen members perform clandestine gym maintenance. I was beyond impressed. The majority of the Tales From the Glitter Gym stories are based on inconsiderate behavior in a shared environment. This was the complete opposite. These two guys made the gym better.
My gym isn’t this bad…yet.
Comments
Jim
August 6 at 2024 at 5:36 PM
@ MAS That’s a hilarious story. I’m currently a member of a relatively high end gym, Lifetime Fitness. It’s very pricey, but they keep it amazingly clean, with equipment being well maintained. While the entire building is looks great at all times, they told me they are in the middle of a $1.5M upgrade.
Stuart
August 9 at 2024 at 4:38 AM
It’s a shame that more gym members weren’t / aren’t even a fraction as conscientious as these two were. The one thing good about the old, smaller, “private” gyms was that there was a “code” of behaviour, often strictly enforced by the owner and regular members. Now people often leave weights discarded anywhere, and it could take a good portion of your workout to find the dumbbells that you wanted to use. People might say that it is the staff’s job to ensure the tidiness of the gym, and that may be so. But with today’s gym user having no regards for other users around them and their environment, because they live in their own little “phone” world, it is a thankless task. It would be much easier if users followed a set of values. Basic social behaviour that seems to be falling out of fashion it seems…
MAS
August 9 at 2024 at 8:21 PM
@Stuart - I have enough thoughts on your comment for an entire post. Coming soon.
MAS
August 17 at 2024 at 9:20 PM
@Stuart - The new post is up. https://criticalmas.org/2024/08/the-economics-of-messy-gyms/