Well ever since I gave my notice at the gyms I work at, it hasn’t gone so well. I found out at the gym I teach in Apeldoorn that the months notice I give is supposed to be a CALENDAR month. I’ve never ever heard of this, and I thought if I gave my notice on 9th December, this would mean I would work till 9th January. But it’s no so, I’m apparently supposed to give notice on the 1st, so this would mean I am supposed to work till 31st January.
Since we’re only talking about 1 balance class, I asked to negotiate. I teach 2 classes at this gym, but the other is a team teach, so there’s no problem with having an instructor for the other class. So this is just one, 1 hour class on Friday mornings which they pay me peanuts for. I was told they “would get back to me”. I asked them to get back to me urgently since I was about to book flights and cancel stuff etc……most of the processes in fact were already underway, Alex had already quit his job for 31st Dec and we were about to finalise the shipping for 4th January. In the meantime I searched for my contract where it said a “calendar months notice” and I didn’t appear to have one.
So, when they didn’t get back to me, I had to go ahead a book flights before they became unavailable, it already cost me extra for delaying so long and I’ve paid pretty expensive flights. The GFM in the meantime went off on holidays and told NOBODY that I was in fact leaving. When she got back, I got told that she wasn’t able to do anything, therefore I had to work till 31st January. I nicely explained that this wouldn’t be possible to mess up my plans for one gym class and asked for a copy of my contract. The next day I was told that my employment was terminated immediately.
I don’t get this? I have a strong suspicion that they haven’t properly inducted me into my employment and that this contract doesn’t exist, so they only have themselves to blame for not informing me properly of the procedures. I was perfectly willing to help out until I left, but instead they’ve totally cut me off. It’s not loss to me, since I never did it ever for the money……I did it cuz I love Les Mills. So it’s their loss if they cannot fill the classes in in the meantime.
The other gym I teach at in Epe is a slightly different scenario and they seem pretty cool about it. I have a zero hour contract, which is basically the casual employment that aussie instructors are used to. So I can resign whenever, but I still gave them a months notice to find someone and I’m willing to stop teaching as soon as they get an instructor. In yesterdays class they were trying out a new instructor, so last week might have been my last class until I get back to Oz!