Grateful for the experience, but grateful to be moving on

As I've mentioned before, I started a part-time job at a small gym in town a couple of weeks after we moved here. It wasn't exactly my style of workouts or personal training and the pay wasn't awesome, but I figured for a first job as a personal trainer it would do. I would get some experience under my belt without having to round up my own clients. And I thought it would be useful to learn about this type of strength training known as SuperSlow. It is far different from the circuit training workouts I was originally trained to do earlier this year.

So for the first 3-4 weeks I was basically learning and in training. I was there about 3-4 days a week for several hours at a time (mostly hearing stories mixed with little tidbits about training). Then once I started taking people through the workouts, we had decided that I would work 3 days during the week and probably one Saturday a month (of course always getting home before Brad left for work at 3 pm). After a few weeks of this it became evident to me and my boss, Mike, that they simply were not busy enough during the hours that I was available to need me there that often. So I cut down to usually only working two days a week, for a total of about 9-10 hours a week. This sounded like a fine set up to me. He kept saying that we'd hopefully get it narrowed down to two specific days and times for me to work. But it was always changing. I always worked on Mondays because that was their busiest day. So even though the time frame changed sometimes, at least I could plan on being at work on Mondays.

The kind of frustrating part was that I would never know what other day of the week I would be working, usually until the night before. This made it hard to plan. And not only that but often minutes before I'd be walking out the door in the morning and had already woken Brad up, I'd receive a text telling me to come in 30-60 minutes later. One time when I was attempting to pick up an extra shift over the holidays, when Brad was home more, my shift kept getting bumped back until eventually it was 2 hours later than I had originally been told the night before. When I received the final text about this I was already in the parking lot and pretty frustrated. This was the day that I finally asked for a raise from my "training hourly rate". As it turned out, he had way overbooked on staff that day. Just trying to make everyone happy with extra hours. It didn't work.

To add to the situation, the method for deciphering how many hours were worked by the employees was less than ideal, and I was often underpaid. I'm thinking that's because I did more chart preparations and phone calls than the other trainers did (I'm the only female trainer that worked much...not to stereo-type, just saying...) And this extra time was often forgotten by the time my boss would get around to payroll (especially the extra time that was spent listening to his stories while I was trying to get stuff done and get out the door so I could spend a few minutes with my husband before he left for work.) Wow, sorry to vent.

So two weeks ago, I only worked a Monday because it turned out that the only other day that he would have needed me I had a doctor appointment. How could I have planned for that when that hadn't been his second busiest day for a few weeks? Then last week, as I was waiting for a text to find out if I was working the next day or not, I just decided to let Mike know if I wasn't needed for a second day, I'd be fine just working Mondays for a while. I didn't hear from him the rest of the week so apparently he agreed. In my defense, along the way he had made it clear that he wasn't lightening my load based on my performance. According to him he was pleased with how I was doing. He simply had enough gaps in the schedule that it seemed to me that he and his one full time worker could easily cover all the mornings but Mondays for now. He was just trying to be nice finding more hours for me to come in even though it wasn't absolutely necessary.

Then in the middle of last week we found out that Brad could switch to first shift if he wanted to. We decided that since this job wasn't turning out to be such a good fit for me after all (schedule-wise), I would quit so Brad could work day shift. We both feel like it will be a much better routine for our family in the long run. We're both excited about the change. Brad will be able to get more of his project questions answered throughout the day, so it should help him be even more efficient at work. He's really liking it there so we're hoping that this is a good sign that he will be hired on directly with the company in March.

I should mention that there were really good things about this job also. My boss was very nice and friendly and I really did like him as a person. It was just more the nature of the business that was frustrating. He was just trying to keep his labor costs as low as he could and I understand that is important when money is tight. He didn't have control over cancellations or people moving all over the schedule. He had rules regarding this, but it didn't make too much of a difference. Most people didn't care that they were getting charged for a workout due to a late cancellation. How would that be to have that kind of money...?

Anyway, I also learned a little bit more about personal training and strength training in general that will be useful to me. I learned that, yes, I am capable of bulking up if I lift very heavy weights:) (Not that this is a good thing, I was just surprised because strength training hasn't done that to me in the past, but I never lifted such heavy weights in the past.) Don't worry, I toned it down (despite the philosophy of the SuperSlow method) once my shoulders were too broad to wear my favorite coat. It was so strange...I hadn't gained any weight but suddenly everything was fitting tighter in the shoulders and lower body. Not that this is the case for everyone, but it was for me.

Another thing that came from this job was meeting a variety of people from the community. I had some very interesting conversations while I was taking people through workouts (some people liked the distraction of talking so they didn't notice the pain:). We talked about community events and doctors and health things and religious things and books and hobbies and kids etc. I only ever took through women, so you can imagine there was usually plenty of talking. And I had gotten to the point where I enjoyed taking people through the workouts and I was getting better at it. My favorite day was when I had back to back appointments for 4 hours with just a small break (the appointments are 30 minutes each). That's when it felt fulfilling to me.

It was also good for Brad and Landon to get some quality time together. Now Brad knows Landon's little routine and what to feed him for meals and snacks and when to put him down for his nap. It's great! And they got lots of good playing time together. Plus Brad and Landon often did the grocery shopping for me on Mondays while I was at work which I will definitely miss.

So, today was my last day as a regular worker at Absolute Fitness. It ended well. I said Mike could give me a call to work if he was in a bind and gave me plenty of notice. So I'm basically in "reserves". He said I could keep my key for now and that I could still come in for workouts either during the slower times or after hours. And I could still get my employee discount (20% off) at the health food store next door that his mother in law owns. This was very nice of him. Plus my last paycheck that he gave me today was very generous. He really is a good person and was totally understanding about our situation and why I was quitting. I feel bad that I vented throughout this post, but I just wanted to get it out for some reason. I'm grateful that I worked there for the past four months, but I'm grateful to be moving on with my life.

Through this short experience, I've learned a lot about myself and what is important to me in life. I would so much rather scrimp and save and have the time and energy to focus on what I value most, my family, the Gospel, and health, than to have an extra income and be distracted from the things that are of most value to me. I know some families do not have a choice and I know that a lot of people are perfectly capable of doing both, so I'm not passing any judgment whatsoever. Some people can handle being very busy and being pulled in a lot of directions and still function at their best. This is not the case for me. I need things a little simpler to be able to deal with the ups and downs in life. I hope that my capacity will continue to increase, but for now I am learning to accept what I currently am capable of.

Ever since Landon was born I've felt this need to add in something more to complicate life. First I had a major surgery which took a lot of preparation and recovery time (which I'm still glad I did), then I got my personal training certification (which took every spare second I had for several months) and spent a lot of time training for a job that eventually fell through, then I got wrapped up in couponing which takes a ridiculous amount of time, and then we moved across the country and I got a job. I'm beginning to see that this tactic of bringing in more busy-ness to feel that I'm okay is not working for me. So I'm going to make some changes that will hopefully help me to feel more joy in life. So I'm excited for this new chapter in life, and I'm going to make it a good one. Here's to simplicity!

If you've made it this far, thanks for listening!