Be careful what you ask for

I’ve been toying with firing Mr. Money. I mean, I like having the income, but he doesn’t allow me to do my job – and that’s frustrating.

I see him Monday, Wednesday & Friday mornings. Sunday evening I received a voicemail from him saying that he was cancelling our appointment because he played golf earlier that day & his back was hurting. He didn’t want to aggravate it with working out. Oh My Lord!

Tuesday afternoon I get another call from him saying that he just got back from the doctor & they think he’s ruptured a disk. I’ve tentatively canceled all of our remaining appointments.

So here’s a man who had back surgery about a two years ago. Again, he knows what helps him (personal training, swimming, massage, yoga & chiropractic) and what hurts him (his Mercedes SL, tennis (although he’ll deny it), soccer, & golf). Because he couldn’t take it easy, he may never be able to do those things again – and then some.

Mr. Money

I see Mr. Money 3 times a week. Mr. Money had back surgery a few months before we started working together, which was almost 2 years ago. He’s in his mid-fifties, is a wealthy business man.

Money is about 50lbs overweight. About 1 1/2 years ago, he offered me an incentive: if I helped him lose 30 lbs by Christmas 2006, he would give me $5000. Great! Cha-ching. Let’s start with a food journal. Every week I would ask him for his food journal & I never got it. I’m still waiting for it. When asked what he ate, he’d respond with “I only eat healthy foods – fish, salads, fruits, vegetables.” Well, at least he knows the right answers to give.

Because of his back problems (aggravated by his 50 lbs of belly fat) he flat out refuses to do certain exercises stating that they hurt his back. I am limited to about 10 exercises that he will do. He is a naturally very strong man, yet he refuses to exercise at his potential. The weight he will allow me to put on allows him to do ~30 repetitions, yet he stops at random numbers. I have instructed him to do 15 repetitions per set, but many times he will count to 12 & stop. When I ask him why he didn’t continue to 15 he states, “You didn’t tell me how many I was supposed to do.” On the Assisted Pull-up machine, he stops at 8 regardless of the resistance. I don’t know why.

My appointment with Money is scheduled for 7:30 – 8:30 in the morning, however our appointments end at 8:10. Initially it was because his business partner had some health problems & his workload had increased. I don’t think that’s ever going to go back to the full hour. Honestly, considering how many exercises I can’t do with him, I don’t know what we would do for the full hour anyway.

Money likes to play tennis. Tennis hurts his back because of all of the twisting from running back & forth across the court, and reaching for the ball. Yet, he still plays. Playing tennis has aggravated his back on many occasions that he has had to cancel appointments with me.

Now, I want to mention that the country club has a policy that if a client cancels an appointment with less than 24 hours notice, we must charge the client. I get paid for these unscheduled cancellations. My beef here is that this man is doing something that he KNOWS is not good for his body – not only not good for his body, but something that hurts – yet he continues to do it.

About a month ago, Money decided that it was a good idea to play golf one day, and then later on, play soccer too. Since then, his back has been worse than it has ever been. His response? “I’m Stupid”

Yes sir, you are.