The Harsh Wake-Up Call I Didn’t Know I Needed

“We’re going nowhere with Craig.”

Scott and Tom couldn’t get the following words out of their mouths fast enough,

“Steve, Craig is on the call.”

Steve paused for a second, slightly taken aback and embarrassed by the fact that he was slamming someone he didn’t think was on the call.

He regrouped quickly and laid into me with a viciousness I hadn’t experienced since prison.

I’m a grown man being yelled at by a grown man.

I was the General Manager of a gym in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

We were having a conference call with the owner and the two new investors he brought on board.

We discussed how the gym was doing regarding membership and revenue.

And the truth was, we were flat.

There were, at its simplest, two reasons for this.

1. The neighborhood and the demographic of the neighborhood were looking for different alternatives to a plain old gym. Specialized studios were popping up all over the city, and people were hungry for variety.
2. I was not giving the job my all.

I was grateful to land a job after prison; it’s not an easy thing to do.