Awhile back I was working for a gym as an independent personal trainer, and group trainer. To give background I created my niche classes on my own with no guidance from the owner, and worked my way to being the most sought after trainer in the gym. Now I’m being told because I took a job across town with another gym, (because my income at this gym wasn’t a liveable wage) that “I only “used” them to develop myself, and create better opportunities” so I lack loyalty and integrity?
For one I acquired all my education prior to working there, created networking avenues on my own through attending certifications/workshops. I had to acquire all my clients on my own because the owner promoted nobody on the team, but themself.
I also had no relationship with the owner other than them reaching out to me to network then they offered me the job the same day, which I stupidly took because we were in the same network, and the style of training I do. I told them I’d stay on board for a year, and when this happened that year was coming to an end. I made my intentions very clear, but as you can see in the text they flipped it into something completely different.
I ignored all the red flags. Shortly after opening 3 trainers left. The environment became very toxic to where gym members were gossiping about rifts between the owner and other coaches. I also had weeks where my paycheck wasn’t even there with no communication, and had to deal with overdrafts. One of the most recent incidents before I left was that my check came up a few hundred dollars short (the owner does all the paychecks). Thank god I do all my own bookkeeping otherwise I would have had to just deal with it (other trainers checks also came up short). The owner would text us out of the blue giving us quotas to get them new members and threaten us with probation, and would tell us to attend unpaid impromptu meetings or we weren’t “team players”. The owner is also married and tried to kiss me once while drunk. I knew I needed to get out of there, and fast. Once I took the new job, the owner then started acting very passive aggressively towards to me. They’d give me ugly looks when my back was turned (clients told me this), removed me off all social media because I was promoting the new gym, and they didn’t want to see it. But they say because their gym account still followed me they’re still supporting me, just not personally. This was just fucking weird. The new gym was being started by one of my coaches/mentors, and the owner is claiming I used them to work for this person (who I’ve known for years prior). Since all this years have passed, and I work completely for myself now, and make more money now than I did working for anyone else. But this experience still eats away at me.