This happened last year but this group inspired me to share this.
I am a personal trainer in Canada. It was a hard enough business before the pandemic, but has been damn near impossible making a living through the lockdowns.
When gyms were closed, I asked my manager if it was going to be an issue with our non-compete to start doing online training while the gym was closed. He assured me it wasn’t and was a good idea.
When the gym reopened they saw that I had created an online platform to sell training on my own. He all of a sudden was surprised and said I would have to brand it as world gym and give them a percentage of the profits.. I was pissed and said that was out of the question.
They had already terminated my position as headcoach of the CrossFit knockoff part of the gym since we still couldn’t run classes (a massive part of my pay ~50%).
Their explanation was they couldn’t allow there trainers to run outside “competing” business because other trainers would want to do it too and wouldn’t focus on selling their training.
I quit that week and have been training from home and online and never looked back.
Not only has the regional manager moved and started to work remotely, but they also run side “competing business”. The fitness manager is still there and does online training on the side as well as training through the gym.
Fuck them for trying to suck all the profits from the trainers barely speaking by while doing whatever they want.
TLDR; got fired for trying to run a side business, now the ones who fired me are doing the exact same.