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He's trying to fucking trick me.
Sep. 20th, 2005 02:01 pmDarrell Phillips, the Penn Valley Physical Education Department Fitness Center Coordinator (according to his business card) told me yesterday to call him between nine and noon today to get an answer on the membership thing. I called him, got his machine, decided to quit playing games and trotted right on into his office.
Turns out that he doesn't want to give me a membership because if I get hurt lifting too much weight or something and the court asks him if, in his professional opinion, a fifteen-year-old should have been using the equipment unsupervised, he would have to say no. That I don't plan to use the weight machines, and that I'm willing to sign a statement agreeing not to, doesn't make a difference because see, he doesn't know that I won't randomly decide, "Hey, why don't I try to bench-press three hundred pounds and see what happens?"
How about if my parents sign a waiver agreeing that the center is not liable for any damage? No, because if something happens, insurance isn't the problem, it's the fact that he would be acting against his "professional opinion."
Why are seventeen-year-olds allowed to use the equipment unsupervised, when they are not legally very different from me? Because most people have been in puberty for a few years by age seventeen, and are therefore less likely to hurt themselves due to the fact that their bone structures have settled (or something).
I've been menstruating for over three years and am quite obviously not just beginning puberty- are there ways to tell whether or not my bone structure is ready to handle the exercise? Well, he's not a medical doctor, he's not qualified to make that decision.
And if I get a signed note from a qualified medical doctor agreeing that my bones are sufficiently ready? Well... hmmm... um... legality... weight resistance training... unsupervised... hmm... tell you what, if a signed note from a qualified medical doctor saying that it's completely safe for me to do weight resistance exercise in an unsupervised situation is produced, we're good to go.
Is a doctor likely to say that a seventeen-year-old, who can easily obtain a membership, is completely safe in the same situation?
And here he fiddled and hemmed and hawed and finally said something vague about family practitioners. I'm gonna get him, though. I could feel the blood pounding when I was standing there, having this (here much abbreviated) conversation. The guy doesn't trust me to honor a signed statement, won't acknowledge that I may be right in any way, and then he has the nerve to assume that I'm stupid enough to fall for this shit. Well, I'm not. I'm going to ask Dr. Murray for a statement saying that I am no less able to withstand weight resistance training than a typical seventeen-year-old. If they let any old seventeen-year-old have a membership, they can't refuse me one if I have that note.
Well, they can. But I'm going to fight them every step of the way. I got him to admit that the law doesn't have a restriction on age and that he's the only one I have to convince. (I asked him if it was up to him, and he said no, that the "risk coordinator" is the one that makes the decisions... then I asked for contact information for that person and he muttered, "Well, they defer to me on matters like this.") That means he has to either go back on his word or let me have my damn membership.
I need to remember to get my $39 back, because there's no way this is going through before at least October, and by then the semester will be half over.
Turns out that he doesn't want to give me a membership because if I get hurt lifting too much weight or something and the court asks him if, in his professional opinion, a fifteen-year-old should have been using the equipment unsupervised, he would have to say no. That I don't plan to use the weight machines, and that I'm willing to sign a statement agreeing not to, doesn't make a difference because see, he doesn't know that I won't randomly decide, "Hey, why don't I try to bench-press three hundred pounds and see what happens?"
How about if my parents sign a waiver agreeing that the center is not liable for any damage? No, because if something happens, insurance isn't the problem, it's the fact that he would be acting against his "professional opinion."
Why are seventeen-year-olds allowed to use the equipment unsupervised, when they are not legally very different from me? Because most people have been in puberty for a few years by age seventeen, and are therefore less likely to hurt themselves due to the fact that their bone structures have settled (or something).
I've been menstruating for over three years and am quite obviously not just beginning puberty- are there ways to tell whether or not my bone structure is ready to handle the exercise? Well, he's not a medical doctor, he's not qualified to make that decision.
And if I get a signed note from a qualified medical doctor agreeing that my bones are sufficiently ready? Well... hmmm... um... legality... weight resistance training... unsupervised... hmm... tell you what, if a signed note from a qualified medical doctor saying that it's completely safe for me to do weight resistance exercise in an unsupervised situation is produced, we're good to go.
Is a doctor likely to say that a seventeen-year-old, who can easily obtain a membership, is completely safe in the same situation?
And here he fiddled and hemmed and hawed and finally said something vague about family practitioners. I'm gonna get him, though. I could feel the blood pounding when I was standing there, having this (here much abbreviated) conversation. The guy doesn't trust me to honor a signed statement, won't acknowledge that I may be right in any way, and then he has the nerve to assume that I'm stupid enough to fall for this shit. Well, I'm not. I'm going to ask Dr. Murray for a statement saying that I am no less able to withstand weight resistance training than a typical seventeen-year-old. If they let any old seventeen-year-old have a membership, they can't refuse me one if I have that note.
Well, they can. But I'm going to fight them every step of the way. I got him to admit that the law doesn't have a restriction on age and that he's the only one I have to convince. (I asked him if it was up to him, and he said no, that the "risk coordinator" is the one that makes the decisions... then I asked for contact information for that person and he muttered, "Well, they defer to me on matters like this.") That means he has to either go back on his word or let me have my damn membership.
I need to remember to get my $39 back, because there's no way this is going through before at least October, and by then the semester will be half over.
