The company NEEDS to pay its employees more. As AGM of a gym in Knoxville, I was told $16/ hour is almost impossible to get. I have a BA in Sports Management and multiple years of experience in an Athletic Director position and the best they could give me was $16/ hour. What they fail to understand is that is not a livable wage for people with families. It is perfect for a graduating high school student or a part time college student. For someone who is trying to support his family, that is the best I can get. I told them I needed $20/ hour for me to continue working there and got told that will never happen. As someone who is passionate about the industry and who wanted to grow in the company, that is sad to hear.
I had a lack of work to do. As the AGM, I want to do more General Manager stuff so when the next position becomes available, I can take it. I was just a glorified front desk worker. I did maybe 2 hours of GM work a week. The rest of the time I was the only one there having to watch the front desk.
The facility was never getting updated and they expect us to sell a facility that is not up to date, has broken machines that have had work orders on them for 2 months, and members constantly complaining about when they will get stuff fixed and me taking the fall for it.
You can not expect me to outsell the nearest Club4 that is brand new, up to date, and has a way better payment system of PER MONTH rather than PER 2 WEEKS. The dumbest thing I've ever heard is doing memberships on a biweekly schedule to "make the memberships seem more enticing". That is the biggest piece of crap. Go to the monthly membership payment method, run promos constantly, and update the facility and the gym will naturally grow.
Don't listen to me though, I'm just a AGM that's been here for 4 months and I don't understand how things are.
Overall, Golds of Tennessee sets unreal expectations of us selling impossible numbers while they are letting their gyms become more and more run down to milk the small amount of profit it cans before it goes under. It hurts because growing up I always thought Golds Gym was the best; however, after this experience of being a glorified front desk worker, getting paid lower then a one year 16 year old Chick-fil-A worker while having a BS degree in Sport Management and 3 years of relevant industry experience, and the unreal expectations they set on selling memberships, I give this a 2 star. Only reason it is a 2 star is because my immediate boss the senior GM was the best boss I've worked for and deserves the biggest promotion of his life.
