Your class-warfare data point du jour comes from Racked NY. Your illustration comes straight from ICHC as I don’t have photoshop right now.

There’s a blogger by the name of “Buns of Steal” who has set the goal of hopping from one gym to another in NYC on those guest passes they all hand out, getting in her workouts without paying to join a health club. She’s a law student, which means she has access to a nice university gym by default, for sure, but that’s neither here nor there when you’re on a mission for publicity.

Well… she got caught by Equinox, which is, last I checked, the most expensive fitness chain operating, and definitely one of the nicest. The funniest part is how they shot her down:

A manager was summoned to chastise her, and that’s when things really started to go downhill:

“OK, you know what our locations offer, why don’t you just commit?”
“Well,” I say truthfully, “It’s the money.”
Here I’m expecting a student discount, a price breakdown, a sale… but nothing prepares me from what comes out of his mouth next: “Well, maybe you just can’t afford it. Equinox isn’t for everyone, you know.”

FEEL THE BURN!

She’s neither entitled to be there nor deserving of sympathy, but in general, you would expect the salesperson to be willing to negotiate a bit, or at least soft-pedal the harsh “you can’t afford it” reality. So, really, the thing that makes this post LOLFed worthy to me is: this is the kind of snobbish customer service we’re used to from back in the days of Dow 14,000, so maybe things are indeed turning around.