#89 Regretting Signing Up for a Gym Membership

Regretting signing up for a gym membership is not an exclusive problem for the unemployed but it’s something 100% of gym card-carrying unemployed people have in common. It doesn’t matter when the gym membership was purchased, whether it was a three year contract signed during peak physical health, acquired when a previous employer was subsidizing an otherwise absurdly priced membership, or a brief lapse of judgement caused by unemployment weight gain. All that matters is that gym memberships weigh heavily on the conscience of those paying to essentially have another plastic card dangling from their keychain that serves more as decoration than actual gym access. 

The issue is that gym memberships cost a lot of money - money that everyone knows is better off being spent on something pleasurable, like eating. However, the sales teams at gyms are notorious for being able to worm their way into the low self-esteem of even the hottest people. The gym rats lure unsuspecting folk into buying some ridiculously expensive gym package involving a start up fee, a monthly fee, and a long contract that the unemployed are afraid to terminate due to the insane amount they paid upfront just for the privilege of getting to pay lots of money to exercise. Their doubts about paying so much money for something they know they’re not really going to use are cast aside when a free gym bag with a hideously large logo is thrown into the deal and the sales team recants uplifting stories of people who overcame their fear of exercise with the careful guidance of the gym’s qualified personal trainers. With the pressure of hyper-friendly, athletic reps standing in front of them as well as dismal results of a fat percentage test, souls are signed away to the gym for the next several years of their lives. 

At first, the unemployed will pour themselves into the gym, or they will for at least one day. Still hyped from the sales pitch, they head to the gym in newly purchased work out clothes (gotta look good to work at looking good), and push themselves in ways they haven’t since striving to pass the President’s physical fitness test in elementary school. Unfortunately, the unemployed are usually too embarrassed to work out with a personal trainer on their first go, so they take it upon themselves to create an exercise regimen - which is to strain themselves and over exert every single muscle in their body. Five middle-of-the-night charlie horses later, with a body that can’t move without extreme pain, the unemployed vow never to work out again. Six months later, they shake their fists at nobody when they open their bank statements and see yet another chunk of cash taken out by the gym and rue the day they ever allowed the gym to directly withdraw funds from their account, giving them no way to avoid paying the bill.

Tags: exercise, paying something for nothing, regrets, unemployment fail, unemployment weight gain