Blog: Group E-Mail to Our Managers: WTF?

I walked into the club tonight at approx 5:30 p.m., which of course is the busiest time of the night.

Our childcare director was behind the front desk. (I'm assuming she thought this was OK since the personal training director's kids were the only ones scheduled to be in childcare at the time?) Since she was behind the desk, our general manager, who was assigned to be the front-desk person tonight, was sitting at the table by the front desk. Our sales director was doing what-anyone know???? I don't. I hope she was touring someone.

The GM was playing with the personal training director's kids in the lobby … they weren't in the childcare room where they belonged. Our trainer on duty, since no one was paying attention to him, felt it was OK to sit down on the couches in the lobby and talk to two young girls.

I feel like I am describing something that happened BEFORE we had our staff meeting last summer, during which we re-set our expectations and had everyone's agreement, especially the management team's, about how we were to behave and perform our jobs.

I'm sure this didn't go on all night. The childcare director went back into the childcare room with the kids. The GM was behind the desk for most of the night, and I'm sure our trainer spent time downstairs with the members. So, yes, this was just five minutes.

But here is what else happened during those five minutes:

A member whose account was on freeze checked into the club. Since the childcare director was at the desk, no one asked this member if she would like to come off hold. I noticed her check in on my computer from the office. I asked at the desk later on, and no one had noticed. If I hadn't, how many weeks (months?) would it have taken us to catch this, allowing this member to work out for free?

A new member, who just joined a day or two ago, checked in while I was behind the front desk. (I had asked the childcare director to let me get to the computer so I could look up the member whose account was on freeze.) I noticed her and said hello. Would the childcare director have known she was new to the club? If I hadn't been behind the desk at that time, would we have made a nice, personable impression? Not that our childcare director isn't nice, but she isn't trained to work the front desk. Can we really afford to let a new member go by unnoticed?

Our busiest time of year is here. I am depending on our management team to execute the way we have been trained, and up to the level that we have agreed upon, and I expect the staff to do the same. This may have been only five minutes, but it was not acceptable.

- Rob