Free?

So a few days ago I went to the movies with my friend Erin to see Grown Ups (not all the recommended btw) and when we left there was a flyer on her car. The flyer advertised a free six weeks program at a certain gym if we registered within the time frame given. So both Erin and I thought this sounded like a good idea and agreed we would go in together to sign up.

Well before we bothered going in to sign up we first called to see if there were any "hidden contracts" or if they asked for any sort of payment for this program. The lady answered the question by saying "No, it is completely hassle free, no contract, no worries and you can work out for free for six weeks." So this gave us a reason to believe it would be free and so we made an appointment for us to get enrolled.

The appointment was set for today at 12:30PM at this certain gym (I am avoiding saying their name as to not fully give them a bad image yet). Well the first sign of something going wrong was the lady we were booked with got double booked, us and a lady who also wanted to join the same program. Well they worked it out and we went back with her for our appointment. We got a tour of the entire place learning all about the great things this gym has to offer, perfect way to get us excited for it.

Then we continued on to get our weight, height, and body fat measured so we could monitor it along the way. After this she started telling us about how often we should come in, rewards the gym offer, etc etc. She then brought our membership pricing and information.

At this point I was thinking **ugh I should have known there was a catch and they would throw a sales pitch** and man was I right. She went on to say why we should join NOW instead of doing the six week trial and at the end I got her to understand we wanted to only do the six week program as the flyer said it was completely free to use. She finally agreed and went to go get our temporary gym passes. I was then thinking "wow...at least the high sales pitch it over."

I was wrong.

She came back with the manager of the gym and he wanted to know why we weren't joining his gym, why we only wanted to do the free program and kept pressuring us to join a membership. He then went so far into a hard sells mode the he told us that if we don't sign up for HIS gym membership we would only have a 1% chance of reaching any goal we had set for ourselves. He began to be pretty rude and basically say that unless we are members we will not get our desired results. He went on an entire rant that last year when this happened 110 people signed up and only 5 finished because they went on the free program. This went on for a good ten minutes of him harassing Erin and me. Finally he got the point that I was not budging and we would be doing the six week, FREE, trial the flyer had advertised.

What is funny though, is he has no clue who he was bullying. I am now MORE motivated to get into the gym and will still be there at the end of my six weeks. He will see me 3-4 times a week waving at him and saying "Hi Randy" every time I am there. Simply to prove he was wrong about my motivation. What stinks for him is that unless I fall in love with his gym equipment, he will NOT be getting me as a member after these six weeks. Simply because of how he acted. However, the girl we had our appointment with did apologize for how he acted and is even giving Erin and me a free workout session with her tomorrow! Who knows maybe SHE will be the reason I join later on, but definitely not him..

I don't get why FREE cannot mean FREE!