I Suck At The YMCA

in conjunction with the start of the ymca's "mad dash" which is the ymca's version of the "biggest loser", the spring session began for the ymca keeping fit programs. the ymca keeping fit programs are the research aspect of the ymca in quincy. basically, participants of the program receive attentive training on nautilus equipment while data is collected in the name of research.

unfortunately, i suck at the ymca which probably isn't good because i'm an instructor for the keeping fit programs. thus, i had to work tonight because the keeping fit program started.

as it seems to be the case for every time i work for the keeping fit programs, i get highly frustrated with the organization known as the ymca. perhaps that is why i suck at the ymca. now, don't get me wrong. i don't consider myself to be a bad research instructor. in fact, i have always gotten great evaluations from participants in the program for being attentive and pushing them to their limits.

the more i work at the ymca, the more i get frustrated with the direction of the ymca. it seems more and more that the south shore ymca is more concerned with the financial apsect of the organization as opposed to the four ideals that the ymca supposed strives for (caring, honesty, respect and responsibility). the keeping fit programs are grossly understaffed for the number of participants in the class. the staff themselves (as much as i like all of them) are not credible as instructors. i could probably go on and on. it's quite disheartening for me because the ymca operates under the guise that everything is done because of those four ideals, when in fact it is clear as day that it is not (at least, based on my opinion).

needless to say, false pretenses has always annoyed me probably because i'm more of the "what you see is what you get" type. (that's also probably why i disliked my so-called "scourge of evil" ex-girlfriend so much. if she had simply told me she liked someone else instead of me, i'd probably be fine with it... well, okay... maybe not, but i'd at least have more respect for her. that's beside the point of course.)

anyway, it's too bad the south shore ymca (located in quincy) is all about the benjamins these days. one of the things i used to enjoy about being an instructor for the keeping fit programs was getting to know the participants and actually helping them achieve their fitness goals. it was very rewarding at the time. and now, even though it's still great to meet the participants and help them reach their goals, it's not the same because the motives of the organization are different.