Tomorrow my spin class is getting evaluated. And when I say “my spin class,” I mean me—I’m getting evaluated. That means my manager and some corporate ‘big wigs’ (do they have big wigs at gyms?) are going to crash my class and critique my every cue. (That’s gym lingo.)
I’ve never been evaluated before but I’ve witnessed other people go through it. These experiences have taught me that there are two ways I could approach this:
1. The Mrs. Hayes* Way (not her real name):
My fifth grade English teacher started prepping us for her evaluation about three months prior. She said that the day the evaluator came we were going to learn about nouns (which I’m pretty sure we covered in third grade). So she spent the next three months teaching us about them. By day two we had it down: person, place or thing. Got it, Mrs. Hayes. Can we move on?
No. She gave us lines: “Elsa, when I ask you what an example of a noun is, you’re going to say “airplane.” Don’t say “the library” because that’s what Tasos is going to say.” You can imagine her panic when, two days before, Tasos forgot his noun. “Fine, just don’t say anything! Keep your mouth shut! Elsa, can you say airplane AND library?” I told her I wasn’t sure I could handle all that. I mean one was a thing and one was a place. Or was an airplane a place AND a thing?
She revoked my lines, too.
A few days before the big event, she redecorated her whole room in a noun-theme. There were people, places and things covering the walls. Then she even wrapped the door with butcher paper and wrote in bubble letters: WHAT IS A NOUN? A PERSON PLACE OR THING!!!!!! GOAL TODAY: MASTER THE NOUN!!!
On the day of the evaluation, she stood by the noun door and greeted each one of us as we entered. Of course she didn’t call us by name because she didn’t know our names. But luckily, she taped name tags to our desks. This wouldn’t be weird except that we weren’t her homeroom; we were only there for an hour a day for English.
That day we were all on our best behavior for the evaluator (I think Mrs. H might have even told us what to wear) and I’m sure our teacher got a stellar score.
And we all mastered nouns that year (but nothing else).
2. The Office Space Way:
I could pull a Peter Gibbons and show up late, put my feet up on my bike and tell the Bobs, “It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just that I just don’t care…If I work my ass off and the gym gets a few more members, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation?”
Now if I go the Mrs. Hayes way then I need to prep my class by telling them to “woo-hoo” and give them all specific lines like, “Man, Elsa, your class is so awesome, I’m going to tell all my friends and family to sign up for gym memberships and I’m going to get five years of personal training!” I’ll also have to stay up all night, decorating the spin room with motivational cues like, “Earn your recovery!” “Challenge yourself!” and my favorite, “Keep your seat over the seat!” (Okay, that’s really a “form cue” but I just like to say it.)
If I go the Peter Gibbons way I don’t really have to do anything. That sounds better.
They might be impressed by my honesty and if they’re not, I’ll just wow them with my knowledge of nouns.
4 comments:
Fun fact: the blog that I linked today's blog with (Tasos is the highlighted word) was written on this same day last year and it was about a good teacher, my third grade teacher. Pure coincidence.
I would definitely go with the Office Space version - as long as there is a cubicle you can unscrew and knock down. Knocking over the spin-bikes would be way too difficult and just not as effective.
and cheetos. I'm sure Frank can hook you up.
Good point about the cubicles.
And the Cheetos would be a nice touch...but since it's a gym I'll have to go with the baked kind.
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