Journal logo

Iced Rooms and Locker Cream

...Wait...

By Kent BrindleyPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
3
Iced Rooms and Locker Cream
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

...WHAT did I just say? (But, whatever I said, I guarantee you that I have your attention now).

Let's try this again, shall we?

LOCKER ROOMS...

By Raúl Lazcano on Unsplash

...AND ICE CREAM

By Lama Roscu on Unsplash

That's a little better. Sorry; I get a little flustered, what with TWO part-time jobs in serving the public while struggling to keep on writing and, one day, make THAT fiscally advantageous.

I've been a Locker Room Attendant (okay, I'm a towel boy and custodian) ever since July of 2016. When I first started, it meant five hours a week and biweekly pay but it also meant the end of either working for the family business or volunteering, unremunerated, for the local library.

I was moving on up in the world from restocking/shelving books for patrons who mostly kept to themselves to folding towels, returning member laundry, scrubbing and mopping the locker room, and cleaning bathrooms for members who seemed to get a big kick out of seeing someone do the difficult jobs. But it was for pay! I was my OWN person!

Gaining work hours takes time. I want from 5 hours, one day a week, to two days a week (about 8 hours), to FOUR days a week (right around 14 hours) to...unemployed thanks to a pandemic, to 9 hours a week as, even upon reopening, the gym had cut its hours. This isn't the worst thing; for someone who has no car, place of his own, or younger family to call his own; but I'm also not about to shout these types of hours (or my career) from the rooftops for the next girl that I'm trying to impress.

I needed more and, upon asking about more hours, I was advised to..."keep asking."

I did keep asking. I uncovered the old resumes and began APPLYING at all of my favorite local restaurants (hey, if I love hanging out with these people, and they're almost my best friends in town right now, why not hang out with them MORE; and GIVE BACK?)

This is NOTHING against the gym; if I could work this, I was going to work TWO part time jobs.

And, indeed, I can "work this." As of the start of this past week, I'm working THREE days a week (at 4 and a half hours an evening) for the gym and TWO evenings per weekend at...an ice cream line; where our other awesome employees scoop and I cash out.

I love the chance that the ice cream line gave me and I appreciate the gym for the hours that I do have. (Again, I don't have QUITE as many expenses as I might be worrying about).

Okay, enough about that.

Let's breakdown this "having two part time jobs" schtick...

COWORKERS

Coworkers at the gym are to help with folding towels or collecting the dirties from the floor and keeping the full club at operating potential. For that, I only actually work alongside TWO coworkers in three nights; and they're great in their own ways...

Coworkers on the icecream line are amazing as they're in charge of scooping and providing the ice cream while I have only just arrived to work evenings and run the cash register besides...

Either way, no matter who I work with, working in a gym locker room or an ice cream line mean that I do work for...

THE PUBLIC

I'm going to be real here...

Picking up people's used towels, let alone cleaning the benches and...OTHER areas of the locker room, is NOT the "sexiest, most pristine" job. I have seen some...things...not worth mentioning (Also, by cleaning the bathroom stalls, I actually HAVE seen some crap).

The members at the gym know what my job is and maybe I am due for a little bit of ridicule as I'm maneuvering around them to scrub the floors and shower stalls or to pick up towels or trash. However, I AM still providing a service for them. And, while a lot of jobs ARE more dignified than this, somewhere beneath the pressed pants, shirt, and name badge is a PERSON doing this for you...

...Which brings me to the ice cream line. (Not the most common interconnector between the two).

Fact: "The children in an ice cream line are a LOT better behaved than a lot of the groups of 30/40-somethings that come through."

Also Fact: "The TEENAGED or COLLEGE aged members of the health club are a lot easier to deal with and are more prone to being respectful."

This logic seems reversed; but I'm speaking as the person who has SEEN all of these people and EXPERIENCED their behavior/treatment of me.

THE AUTHORITY OF A LEMMING.

There are still lots of questions here in Michigan about the approach to the mask issue; especially once you've been fully vaccinated or when you're a young family traveling from State to State.

The gym/health club where I work is, on a very broad technicality, interconnected with a healthcare system. That means three things that we employees and the members that we serve must remember...

1). "Cell Phone use is prohibited in the locker room/pool deck." (All phones have cameras on them now; and I think that the official stance has to do with HIPAA, if not Michigan State LAW after someone may or may not have ACTUALLY used their camera phone in a locker room somewhere once to publish photos and humiliate another party).

2). "Masks ARE to be worn (regardless of Vaccination status) at ALL times; EX-CEPT when actively showering/shaving/drinking or in one of the pools/hot tub."

3). "You, as employees, are PROMISED the authority to approach members about these policies..."

Yeah; this sounds fine on paper; but there seems to be some breakdown in communication in practice when asking an older member to put the phone away results in "That's illegal to ask me to do that!" "I have a medical condition!" "Your rules are STUPID!" "But what about (so-and-so)?"

Again, the YOUNGER members apologize (or, occasionally, go "I was just muting it/turning off my music/whatever") just before they at least put the phone away (in MY presence. What happens after I'm gone is best left to the imagination but I've DONE my job).

...and don't get me started on the "mask" part. "Well, I'VE been double-vaccinated!" (...and I appreciate that. Thanks in due part to the technicality of the gym falling under the hospital somewhere, I've been double-vaccinated since the end of JANUARY, so, believe-you-me, I know where your argument is coming from. This is STILL a higher-up's policy, NOT mine, and not even my director's).

"Psh; maybe ACROSS THE STREET is a hospital but YOU'RE not!" (It's a healthclub under a hospital SYSTEM. Please just hang in there a little while longer; same as me, same as anyone else...)

ICE CREAM AND THERAPY

Picture this; I'm on the ice cream line, a young family comes up, mom's taking care of the kids, dad's getting ready to pay, and a child's baby-sized cone goes...

SPLAT!

"Awwww" moment.

"Don't you worry about it; the nice ladies down the ice cream line will fix that cone straight-away!" (Across a full ice cream line with other patrons: (yells "Baby-sized [ice cream flavor]." Seriously; our scoopers are awesome.)

Applying vocal therapy to an innocent young child who has dropped an ice cream cone is easier than providing vocal therapy to a 5-6 year old urchin who has just heard me recite "okay; two babies and a single co..."/"I'M NOT A BABY!"/"You're absolutely right. Two Baby CONES and..."

THEN, there is therapy to an ADULT who has bypassed the ice cream line, outside of my direct field of vision and is in the corner of the food line...

"Excuse me!"

(She is excused and now has my attention and apology).

"...There is a SIX YEAR OLD CHILD across the way (who can't be vaccinated) WITHOUT A MASK! When I brought MY unvaccinated children, I left them outside..."

(Said six year old child hadn't entered the ice cream shop alone and couldn't have, otherwise, been better behaved under her father's care. Again I say, each time I work the ice cream line, 4 out of 5 CHILDREN [who are, allegedly, supposed to be so illmannered] couldn't be BETTER behaved or mindful of their manners. Besides, although EVERYONE in the restaurant can HEAR this, she has come specifically to me with a complaint. She must have come to me for a REASON...).

"...I'm terribly sorry. WHAT would you like me to DO?"

(Customers, who have otherwise not specifically told you how you could make their visit better, JUST LOVE being asked for that missing nugget of information. Thanks for entering my T.E.D. talk on this sensitive subject).

...After she has (of course) stormed out the door and back to her tribe (that, true to her word, she had left seated outside), it occurs to me that she hadn't exactly been having a private, discreet conversation with me on this matter and the family who DESERVES to feel a little bit slighted because of her DESERVES addressed. I walk out from behind the register, stand there, and I apologize for HER behavior. (...That's easier for me than it sounds. If I'm not apologizing for my own "wrongdoings" that aren't that wrong, I'm apologizing for someone else's treatment of somebody else).

There are some days when people have forgotten how to treat one another. When this happens in an ICE CREAM LINE, you know that someone's just had a very bad day (...pandemic year/vacation/etc.)

CASH ME OU'SIDE

By Dima Kolesnyk on Unsplash

One thing that I've learned from an Ice Cream Register and NOT from a locker room is to use the left side of my brain again to calculate change.

Then, after dazzling the crowd with remedial arithmetic in quoting change (and, one out of three times, remembering to carry the one so that the register AGREES with what I've just mumbled out loud), a drawer sparse on 1s, 5s, or 10s, if not two or ALL THREE of the above, pops open. There, with a crowd gathered to watch the show, I sprint into the back to search for ones or very visibly go rifling through the tip bowel to find enough ones to supplement tossing in a larger bill. That generally works for singles; but last weekend was the first time that I encountered missing 5s and 10s approximately every five minutes. So peoples' late-night dessert comes with the public show of me paniccing over change...

=====================================

I'm sorry; this isn't supposed to be an indictment on our customers (If nothing else, it speaks volumes about the guy who got his ARTS degree in WRITING in hopes of publishing Fiction one day. SOME things just don't happen overnight).

Anyway, I'm sitting here chuckling over some of these anecdotes and I hope that some of you who once worked in customer service can do the same.

Thanks for attending my first Friday Funnies day...

=====================================

Me again; your friendly neighborhood author. I canNOT shake the idea of "Ice Rooms" and "Locker Cream" (Although that title alone must have baited no fewer than 50 clicks).

However an "Ice Room" sounds like a nice place for Batman's Mr. Freeze...

...I would probably regret getting too far into what "LOCKER Creams" are...

…Nope; no regrets for thinking that one through. THIS is clearly “Locker Cream.” Get your mind out of the gutter!

Hey, thanks again for reading. Feel free to "Heart," "Share," or Tip. Happy weekend, everybody.

humor
3

About the Creator

Kent Brindley

Smalltown guy from Southwest Michigan

Lifelong aspiring author here; complete with a few self-published works always looking for more.

https://www.instagram.com/kmoney_gv08/

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.