My PT is annoyed I haven't given notice...

[filionj]

But, I pay in blocks. I've come to the end of a block and I'm just not renewing until Sept. (Or ever now).

I can't see how I have to give notice? I don't have a contract?

Thinking he's not for me, he pulls me up on cancelling short notice when my children are ill despite the fact I've already paid for the session. I think he expects to be able to fill the slot and get double bubble.

What a shame, we get on fine etc but this all leaves a very bad taste.

Imagine mumsnet's response if I did that!

Well at the risk of sounding trite, sometimes life isn’t nice. Particularly at work. So you sat in your car for a bit (quite how cold cars get I don’t know). It’s hardly like being sent down the salt mines. It wasn’t particularly nice for the OP to lose out on both her training session and the money she paid for it - and to have to deal with a sick child on top of that. The PT definitely got the better deal.

Put it this way: let’s say you have a minimum 48 hours notice period for cancellations. If one of your clients cancels 36 hours before a session - plenty of time for you to arrange things so you’re not sitting in this Arctic car of yours - do you think “Awwh, I shouldn’t charge them - it’s not very nice to lose money”? Or do you charge them, as per the terms of your policy - terms to which they agreed - and get a paid hour to yourself?

If you’re happy to take the smooth, you can’t complain about the rough.

Get back to me when you've done a couple years of self-employment under similar conditions.

You’re forgetting one fairly key point here. The PT doesn’t want to lose the OP’s business. He can’t be THAT bothered about the cancellations - otherwise the news that the OP wasn’t going to continue would be a positive. If, as you’re trying to portray, he was largely motivated by an altruistic desire to bring fitness to the masses, he’d be delighted that he could take on a new client who appreciated his passion, and whose children would never have the temerity to be ill. And all without having to have a difficult conversation with the OP in which he tells her she’s unreliable so he doesn’t want to work with her anymore.

Yet he’s not treating this as a win. He’s actually pretty pissed off about it. Which makes me think the queue of motivated, appreciative clients who are happy to keep booking him forever isn’t as long as you and some posters are trying to make out.

No thanks. I don’t want to be self employed, for the very reasons I’ve described. No one is forcing you to do it either. You could get a salaried job.

I’ll warn you though - that’s not always a picnic either. Sometimes I’ll have a quiet week and still get my full salary; other times I’m run ragged and don’t get a penny extra. It’s called reality.

So patronizing. "I'll warn you though"
I've also had salaried jobs.

I was trying to think of reasons why the PT might have been irritated by the OP cancelling at short notice.
I was also pointing out in my original post that the OP's assumption that the PT wanted to sell the time slot twice might have been wrong.
You've decided to have a go at me, talking about my "Arctic car" in quite a nasty way. There is no need for that.

I'm not engaging with you any further.

The bottom line is that technically OP has done nothing wrong. The PT likely showed irritation because he assumed she would be carrying on and hadn’t anticipated the drop in income. Maybe he’s had a few clients do the same and he’s under financial pressure. Let’s face it, a PT is a luxury for most (albeit a very valuable one imo), so in times where the cost of living is rising, they are likely to be one of the first costs to be cut.

I would try to be gracious but firm under the circumstances. I wouldn’t inflame the situation by entering in any kind of response other than to reiterate you won’t be continuing after the end of the block. Just chalk it down to experience, move
back to your preferred gym and enjoy your summer!

That you pay in blocks doesn't make your lack of consideration for someone else, who is relying on income, any better.
How would you feel if you were told at the end of the month in a job that you had lost it with no prior warning? I bet you wouldn't be happy.

Well if he’s selling set numbers if sessions, but is relying on the assumption that the same people will just keep on buying more and more sessions forever, more fool him. That’s not an effective way to run a business.

Comparing it to being sacked from a job with no warning is disingenuous. The PT knows the block was coming to an end. He just assumed OP would book another block. If you’re going to compare it to a job, this is the equivalent of taking on a month-long contract role and not even thinking to ask if they were planning on renewing your contract for another month.

I'm not engaging with you any further.

Now who’s being patronising?! 😆

I love it when posters loftily announce their exit from a thread/discussion in the mistaken belief that anyone gives a shit.

And you clearly don't understand what constitutes a contract. That is, unless you are simply referring to the block she booked and he provided. The contract does not extend beyond the number of sessions in the block, meaning the op has no obligation to continue and the PT has no obligation to continue once the block is complete.

I think there are!

I'm also self employed and realise people end without notice. l always send them a warm message wishing them well and inviting them to return if they wish in the future. Some of them do even years later. I would never return to a service provider who was rude to me or pressured me.

It's the nature of being self employed that cash flow is uncertain but in return you are your own boss and manage your own time which is wonderful.

It’s business not personal. He sounds unprofessional.

Every so often i come across a mumsnet thread where I feel like a lot of posters must be sniffing glue and this is one of them. You did nothing wrong OP.

It’s possibly not about you but his commitment to the gym….

the one I knew was told to hang around the gym (at no cost to the gym) ‘in case’ a new client walked in, and thus could be immediately introduced to the PT.

the set up was the gym had a contract PT who sub contracted other PT’s to hinself. they were required to pay him rent (which actually covered his rent to the gym) and were not allowed to PT at any other gyms.

so the one I knew would drop her daughter at school and head to the gym. She would do her own workout and then ‘hang around’ until her appointment came in. When that appointment cancelled, she felt the day wasted.. having said that, several times I told her to ditch the guy she was sub contracting to because he wasn’t handling tax correctly and she didn’t have a head for business anyhow.

in more recent times she had clients not turn up or not pay, and as times are tight, gym membership is the first thing people drop.

so my guess your PT has become used to your regular payments and you have thrown him off guard. The one I knew took things like this very personally..

The responses on this thread are ridiculous.

OP is not in a romantic relationship with him, she pays him. She is not obligated to manage his cash flow for him.

His behaviour is high unprofessional. Presumably he is coming into a quiet time of year and he is frustrated. He is taking his frustration out on OP. This is not on.

I am also in the fitness industry. One of the most important rules of any business is understanding that you are not entitled to anybody's business or money no matter what your previous working arrangement or history is. Clients have to work to earn their money, it's up to them how they spend it.

If a client cancels with you it's perfectly fine to think f**k them while you paint on a smile, thank them for their hard work so far and congratulate them on their progress. Even if they leave for a competitor you do that and you do your best to mean it. Then you reflect on why and if, it's appropriate you ask them and appreciate them taking the time.

In this situation the PT could use the opportunity to reflect on his own booking and cancellation processes. Really he should have an automatic alert set up when someone is within 10 days of their block ending to see if they are renewing. It's his responsibility to fill his own hours, he is self employed. If he had reacted differently to OP there would have been an opportunity for a conversation for another solution; perhaps doing less over the summer, selling a bundle or even prepaying for September to keep her place. Because of his huffy, immature and unprofessional response he's lost a client and is out of pocket.

As for the debates about whether OP is BU cancelling and paying, they are so idiotic I'm not even going there.

My gym is actually quite busy then - men and women.

He seems to have confused personal training with a personal relationship. OP is not his friend!

What's a PT?

As has been explained about half a dozen times on the thread,@Oldwmn, it's a personal trainer.

Thanks! No meed to snark 🙄

What's that got to do with anything what happens in your gym?

I didn't know what PT was either, first of all thought it might be, 'piano teacher', googled and found some really odd things, then I worked it out when I saw 'gym' mentioned. I don't think it is a common acronym, have only ever seen it on here which has many of its own 'Mumsnet abbreviations'.

Everything I type now sounds snarky! Would JRTFT have been less snarky for you? 🙄

Well, I guess the flipside is that some people would get annoyed if he suddenly booked somebody else in the slot they'd had for months and said "oh well, there's no contract here".

I was just responding to a specific comment, if that's OK with you.