Long story coming up – I worked as head coach at a gym. This gym was owned by an absolute douchebag that I didn’t know was so horrible when I first joined the gym. He seemed friendly at first, and then showed his true colors. I quickly realized why every single one of his former coaches left and never came back despite him acting like they were friends. He had me salaried for less than minimum wage at full time hours, and was working me 50-60 hour weeks. Once work was “over” I was still working because his rule was, “ABC – Always Be Coaching” but this just meant I was doing administrative work for the business once the doors had closed for the day. With all of this said, the owner would just be online shopping for his personal life, telling you how stupid you are and how you need him and he doesn’t need you.
Now, with all that said – I had looked for part time work to supplement my income and found an opportunity through a former gym client who reached out to me. The next day, the owner went through my computer iMessage as I was coaching a group class and found texts between myself and the former client. He proceeded to call and harass her and then act ignorant and confront me about “looking for a new job” just to be sure I was, “happy here”
The former client contacted me about what happened, informing me that the owner had called her screaming and insulting her and saying plenty of other nasty things. I quit without leave that night. I left the keys in his desk, and sent a message on Slack that said, “hey – I heard you went through my text messages while I wasn’t in the office. I will no longer be working for you. Good luck.” An immediately blocked him in every way I felt he could contact me
He lost his mind from what I was told and did indeed try to contact me but never successfully managed to do so.
Fast forward two weeks and I filed a labor claim for nearly $8,000 and the abuses on the job and eventually received a response from the labor department with the owner’s response to my allegations. The hilarity that was his response was true gold. But the story gets better.
The owner spent the next two months trying desperately to find new coaches and workers (I was told by friends), but to no avail. And to fight this labor claim.
Well, fast forward to august 15th of this year(4 months later) and his business is officially permanently closed. It looks like he needed me more than I needed him after all.. the sweetest detail is that I now have a job paying double what he did, great benefits, and upward trajectory….but the sweetest detail of all? I got to tell the labor board to drop the case. I received a call asking for more details about my side and responded with “you can drop the case. I’ve already won, he went out of business” and hung up the phone.
PS – owner is now selling old gym equipment with a tax/business mark up on the final price to make more cash now that he is unemployed. His business is officially closed and I do not believe he can legally apply business sales tax to items he sells privately. Does anyone know the proper agency to report this to? I just want someone to take a look and see what’s going on 😉
Edit: grammar