Escape to Giddywell Grange

by Kim Nash

  I arrived fifteen minutes early and was asked to wait in reception until they were ready. Forty-five minutes later, I still hadn’t gone in and I was getting more wound up with the waiting.

  Eventually, my name was called and I was taken through to a conference room where a panel of three sat behind a table, with a vacant chair opposite them in which I was invited to take a seat. They introduced themselves as the MD, the sales director and the operations manager. They all seemed perfectly nice and fired questions at me left, right and centre. I answered everything pretty darn well, I thought, and felt confident that I could do the job, even though what I’d been doing for the last twelve years wasn’t directly linked. I knew that the skills and experience I’d picked up over time meant that I could do most jobs standing on my head.

  ‘Thank you so much for your time, Miss Young, and for coming in so quickly. You’ve certainly got lots of experience on the sales, PR and marketing side of things which is exactly what we’re looking for. We’ll be going to second interviews as the next stage, so you’ll be hearing from us very soon.’

  I shook hands with all three of the panel members and left feeling pretty damn confident. I walked out with my head held high. Maybe things were starting to look up after all and I wasn’t as bloody crap as I’d thought I was after Ronington’s decided to part company with me. Within days, I’d very probably got myself a new job. I’d show them that I wasn’t useless after all.

  * * *

  That particular feeling didn’t last long though as within a couple of hours of being back home, my phone pinged to say that an email had arrived. My heart sank as I read that while they felt that my skills and experience were excellent, I wasn’t quite right for this particular job. There was lots of good luck for the future blah, blah, blah but I was back to square one. No job, no future to look forward to and I felt lower than low.

  I fired off a quick text to Mum and Beth, telling them both that I’d been turned down and Mum sent back:

  Plenty more jobs out there for my beautiful girl. Onwards and upwards. Love you x

  And Beth came back with:

  Well, it’s obviously not the right job for you my love and not meant to be. Don’t lose heart. The right thing will come along at the right time. And remember, there’ll always be a poo bag here with your name on it!

  That night, I sat in a pair of old pyjamas, and stuffed my face with chocolate, feeling really sorry for myself. I drank the best part of a bottle of Pinot Grigio and took myself off to bed around ten p.m. feeling sick from being a total glutton. I wished I’d stopped at Mum’s again. I felt really lonely.

  * * *

  A ping from my phone, woke me around eight a.m. I’d slept in, which was very unlike me and possibly down to the wine. That was the noise that signified I’d got an email, and when I checked, there was one from Gym Fit, asking me to call them to arrange an interview. Crikey, this job-hunting lark was a proper rollercoaster on your emotions. I waited till nine a.m. on the dot and arranged an interview for the following morning.

  What the hell did I do with myself today though? I literally had nothing to do. I supposed I could check job sites, but doing it on my phone wasn’t the best way to do it as the writing was all so blinking small.

  The post arrived and in it was a letter as Celine had promised from the HR department with my redundancy settlement. One week’s pay for every year that I’d been there, my holiday pay for the holiday that I hadn’t yet taken that year and an extra thousand pounds on top. Sounded like quite a bit, but once I started to get the things I needed from the list I’d made, I couldn’t see it lasting that long, especially when I had to buy a car.

  Window shopping. That was the answer. I’d go and check out laptops and iPads. I know Beth had said that I could use hers, which was so kind of her, but I needed something to do while I was at home too. The other thing I could do was to go to the gym I supposed, but I was scared to death to bump into someone I knew, who would want to know why I was there in the daytime, and I’d have to tell them my whole sorry story. I wasn’t ready to share that just yet.

  I drove to the local retail park, and went into two different electronics shops. Not having a clue as to what the hell I was actually buying, I even surprised myself when I came out of the second one, with a new Mac and an iPad. At this rate, my redundancy money wouldn’t last long at all.

  I spent the rest of the day, setting everything up and googling PR jobs but also looking at blog posts about what to do when you want to change your career. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I also checked out some other local gyms so that I could be fully prepped for tomorrow’s interview.

  * * *

  Once more, I turned up looking the part in a smart trouser suit. I was the smartest one there and was introduced to the regional manager and the gym manager. A quick tour round the gym piqued my interest and it was explained to me that the main part of the job was to contact local companies and offer their staff corporate membership. How hard could that be? They seemed to be a really young, dynamic team and the company was really forward-thinking. Part of the role would be to manage the membership team of three people and ultimately increase their membership numbers. I felt that I’d be well suited to the job and it appeared that they did too because after being at home for two hours, a job offer landed in my inbox.

  I punched the air. I could do it. People did want me to work for them. I was good enough! Thank goodness for that. I gave the regional manager a call and after a little negotiating – I asked for more money and they said no – we agreed on the offer. It was nearly half the salary I was used to getting but a job was a job and I couldn’t afford to be particularly choosy right now, so I accepted and said that I was looking forward to starting next Monday.

  * * *

  The days until I started my new job dragged a bit. I milled around, not really doing much, just sleeping lots and drinking buckets of tea and nursing my wounds. I still felt totally devastated that I’d been made redundant and it really hurt when I felt that I’d given so much to the company, although I was grateful that I’d found something pretty quickly. Not everyone was that lucky.

  My emotions were all over the place. I spent time over at the farm when Beth was free, although she was so busy alternating between Growlers and helping in the community, those times were few and far between.

  Monday came around. Wanting to make a fab impression, I had dressed in a designer suit and high heels. The club manager took one look at me, grinned and passed me a pair of shiny branded tracksuit bottoms and a manly polo shirt with the name of the gym printed bang in the middle of my right boob. Perfect placement by the marketing department. I was leant a pair of really manky old trainers from lost property and told to bring my own in tomorrow. They’d forgotten to give me that little bit of useful information. The thought of putting my feet into this disgusting footwear made me cringe as I thought of my beautiful shoes and the designer pumps I normally wore if I had to resort to flatties.

  I sat at my desk and was told that at ten a.m. there was a conference call when all the membership managers from the Midland sites dialled in and talked about what they would do for the day ahead. A further call would take place at five p.m. to talk about their successes. That seemed a little excessive to me, and very controlling, but so be it. I was the new girl so I’d go with the flow.

  After spending most of the day being introduced to the fitness team, and the three members of staff who would be working under me, in the time we had left, I was given instructions from the gym manager to do roleplay with my team and go through some scripted questions and answers which were in the handbook. It all felt a bit daft to be honest, something that grown adults shouldn’t really have to do.

  There wasn’t much I could contribute to the early evening call that day, and I went home wondering what the next day would entail. I soon found out, when on the morning call the next day, my instructions were to continue with the roleplay with my team, until we knew
it off by heart. I’d never been one for roleplay to be honest, at the PR company we just got on with stuff, but then I’d never worked at a gym before, so ran with it. Just before lunch, the club manager suggested that we went out into Stafford town centre to give out some free day passes to the gym to break things up a bit. I was taken aback at the thought of standing around in the street – having thought that my role was to focus on corporate membership – but my team looked to me for guidance, so we piled into my car and headed for the town centre.

  We chatted in the car and I got to know the guys a little better. Dave was just nineteen and a fitness fanatic and it was his first job after leaving sixth form. Ali had been working there for two years and said that she’d seen membership managers and staff come and go quickly. When I asked her whether she’d considered applying for the position, she laughed and said that the turnover of staff in the department was so incredibly high that she’d rather keep her job. She was quite happy because she got membership for free and she was a proper gym bunny. Marie was the member of staff that we’d left behind in case there were any walk-in visits. Ali told me that she was twenty-three and had taken a change of direction from her beauty career as she couldn’t cope with standing on her feet all day. She’d been there for one month and was still learning the ropes herself.

  As we approached the town centre, the weather was looking pretty grim, with grey cloudy skies ahead, and after I parked up, we spread ourselves out along the high street. In our bright green gym polo shirts, we were quite a show. As it started to drizzle, and my carefully curled hair hung limply around my shoulders, I handed out leaflets, smiling at the passers-by and using my most enthusiastic voice.

  ‘Hi there, can I offer you a free day pass to Gym Fit in Stafford?’

  Now, I know us British people are a suspicious lot when someone is trying to stop them in the street, but I found myself wondering why people couldn’t actually be nice to those just trying to do their jobs, instead of completely ignoring them, deliberately walking in a different direction or avoiding eye contact. You would have thought we were passing on a deadly virus, the way people treated us.

  A group of lads in their late teens walked towards me. These will definitely go for it, I thought. I smiled sweetly. One of them deliberately nudged into me, knocking all the fliers out of my hand. They found it highly amusing as I picked up the scattered leaflets that were all getting wet.

  ‘Sorry love, didn’t see you there doing your Kermit the Frog impression!’ More laughter drifted my way but I held my head up and continued to smile sweetly through gritted teeth.

  ‘We’re giving away free passes today to Gym Fit. Would you be interested at all?’ They fell about laughing and one shouted, ‘You’re not a very good advert for a gym with an arse the size of yours, love.’

  I was seriously insulted – I knew the tracksuit bottoms weren’t the most flattering but couldn’t believe their rudeness.

  I huffed Miss Piggy style, and turned in the opposite direction. A pretty young lady walked towards me with a pushchair.

  ‘Hi there, can I offer you a free pass to Gym Fit?’

  ‘You calling me fat, you cheeky cow?’ she turned on me.

  ‘God no, not at all. I just thought you might like to come and try us out. Maybe grab the chance to have a bit of “me” time.’

  ‘No! Fuck off!’

  Charming! I looked over at my team who were getting similar abuse from passers-by. I couldn’t believe the reaction we were getting. Why can’t people just be nice?

  I rounded my team up and decided that we’d go to the nearest coffee shop to warm up and get out of the rain. They told me that this was quite usual behaviour from the general public and that they rarely got people to even take a flyer, let alone come for a free trial.

  Downhearted, we headed back to the gym and the manager asked how we’d got on.

  ‘Completely bloody awful to be honest.’ I replied.

  ‘Oh well, tomorrow is another day. Perhaps you could try a different town centre or a different approach. The one you are using is clearly not working.’

  Slightly disappointed by the lack of encouragement and empathy, I found the sales call that took place at five p.m. wasn’t the most positive, either. The area manager ended by saying that there would be consequences for the teams that had the fewest sales at the end of the week and that our priority was roleplay again the following day as we were obviously not getting our sales patter right. Great. Now I had that to look forward to.

  I realised that at Ronington’s, I was pretty much left to my own devices. I worked out my own plan and just got on with it, without any supervision and certainly no need to do roleplay. I was thirty-seven, for goodness’ sake. Did I really have to sit and do roleplay with a team to work out how to get new customers? There were so many other ideas I had that I knew would work.

  That evening, I got my notepad and pen and sat for an hour and a half jotting down a ton of ideas, planning to bring them up during the conference call the next day. That lifted my spirits a little. After all, PR and marketing was what I did, and I knew that I knew my stuff. I went to bed that night feeling a little more positive than I had earlier that day.

  On the conference call the following morning, I suggested that we could contact some of the larger companies in the vicinity of the gym and ask whether they have an open day, or a staff health day, or whether we could introduce one. Maybe a health check or just even give out our free day passes asking people to come along and see what facilities are on offer. I was met with deathly silence.

  ‘Thank you for your input, Madison, but I’d rather you just got on with what I’ve asked you to do, rather than waste time coming up with random ideas. You are paid to do as you are told. Please do it.’

  Slightly disillusioned that I wasn’t using my skills to the full, which I understood were the reason that they’d taken me on, when I went back to the sales office, I made an executive decision, and decided to sit down with my team and chat the ideas through with them. They loved my ideas. We were all fired up and cracked on making calls to local businesses, setting ourselves little targets along the way and it was fun. I thought that everyone loved a bit of initiative and when I could show her our results, the area manager would be really impressed.

  On the five p.m. call, when she asked about our success for the day, I told her we’d made several appointments for people to visit the following day, because of the activity that we’d done. There was deathly silence for about thirty seconds.

  ‘I told you what to do today! Did you not listen? What on earth did you think you were doing?’ she bellowed down the phone line. I was mortified, knowing that ten other membership managers were on the call.

  ‘I used my initiative and we got results.’ I stuttered out.

  ‘I have never known anyone as insubordinate. I’ll be coming to your gym tomorrow and I’d like to see you privately.’

  Well, I’d obviously made a cracking impression on her. Why hadn’t I just done what she told me? Why had I thought that my ideas were better than hers? I could have kicked myself. I just wanted to do a good job and that was what I explained to her when she came to the office on Thursday afternoon.

  ‘I’ve decided that you and your membership team will report to Dudley Gym Fit tomorrow morning at six a.m. and you will do an hour’s boxercise class.’

  I giggled but when she glared right back at me I realised that it was no joke. Dudley gym was about forty-five minutes’ travelling time from my house at that time in the morning, which would mean leaving home at five-fifteen a.m. at the latest. Surely she wasn’t serious.

  ‘Perhaps after that, the next time you’re thinking of using your initiative you might think again and do as you were told in the first place. We don’t pay you to think.’

  She was only about twenty-eight, clearly one of those who was keen to get on and push her way through the ranks, not caring who she left behind in her wake. I’d seen that type before and sudden
ly from nowhere, I found my voice. She might be my boss, but that didn’t mean she had the right to speak to me this way. I decided I’d try to explain once more.

  ‘I was using my initiative, that’s all. I have a PR and marketing background and know that these things work. In fact, we have made ten appointments this morning alone with local businesses who are really interested in us working with their staff. If we can help them to have healthy staff, it’s great for their absence figures and if they get benefits from being a part of the gym as part of their wages, people are going to want to work there. That’s had more effect than standing in the street handing out leaflets. I’m sorry, but I think that to be punished in this way is a little unfair.’ Bloody massively unfair is what I wanted to say, but thought I’d better tone it down a bit.

  ‘Well, your team will have you to thank for getting up early and training, won’t they?’ She was venomous. How did someone like her get a job like that? My blood was beginning to boil. I made a split-second decision which I knew I might come to regret, but right then I didn’t care.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I won’t be going.’

  ‘You will go!’ she yelled at me.

  ‘I’m sorry but to be totally honest, this is probably the crappiest job I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve had to dress up like Shrek, stand in the pouring rain, been told to fuck off, been told I have a fat arse, and all that when the pay is rubbish. I’ve tried to get new members into the gym but we can’t make people come doing it your way and then, when we find a way that does work, you think it’s ok to punish us for that. No one deserves that.’ I was on a roll now and the words wouldn’t stop pouring from my mouth.