I Don't Know Folks Like That

I had an "I don't know folks like that" moment today.  When I arrived at the field house, there was a woman waiting to see me about registering for the adult boxing class.  Everything was cool until it was revealed that she had no money to pay the fee.  "I was wondering if I could sign up now and pay later," she told me.  "The registration system doesn't allow that.  Everyone has to pay up front and in full," I informed her.  "The guy at the front desk told me that you could take care of me," she said.

The guy in question was the seasonal sports coach.  He did tell her that I could take care of her but only in terms of giving out information about the class.  The man didn't tell her anything along the lines of "Coach Hillari can give you a hookup", but that's what she heard and expected.  She gave me a line about wanting to learn self-defense, but she admitted she saw the writing on the flier that stated boxing is not a self-defense class.  "Fists are not going to stop bullets or a knife and boxing is not designed to fight off multiple attackers," I let her know.  Another twenty minutes went by with her expecting me to make some way for her to take the class without paying for it first.  I was late starting the kids' class because it took too long for her to figure out that the park district doesn't do installment payments.  

I've seen this movie before in other gyms, and it never ends well.  The coach has a heart for someone who can't afford the fee for whatever reason and lets them into the gym.  Several weeks or even the whole session goes by and no payment is made.  Sometimes the supervisor checks the attendance records and puts the person out of the gym.  Most times, the coach has to keep needling the person about payment until they leave or the coach blows up and runs them out of the place.  Now I might give a break like that to someone who had been in the gym previously because I know they'll make good on paying up.  But I'm not about to take a chance on someone who just walked in off of the street.