Journals

I'm an NYU grad school alum, so I usually feel a bit of entitlement to be critical of my own school.  Because I think I'm an insider and all...  But what happened to a group of basketball playing friends and I got me particularly fired up, so here's my tale.    To Preface:  As an alum member to the NYU gym, you're allowed to sign in 2 guests per visit for $10 per guest.     My friends and I met up at the front of the Coles gym at around 7pm last, last Wednesday.  Some of us were alums and some not, so the alums would sign the guests in.  I didn't have to sign anyone in, so I just waited and chatted.     One of my friends who got a guest pass stayed at the door to chat while the person who signed him in went ahead to change.  We stayed at the front for maybe 2 minutes, and decided it was time to play some ball.  And that's when the trouble started...     According to NYU gym rule, the guest has to be accompanied by the member when he/she goes through security (basically someone checking for IDs at the door).  Although this is not very useful rule (the member and guest could be at different parts of the gym, and there is currently no way for the gym staff to know or enforce the rule after people have entered into the gym), this is understandable actually, for security reasons.     As we entered the gym, the security guard gave my friend trouble and asked him to find the person who signed him in.  The question itself was ok, but the guard acted as if he was a thug in the movies trying to rob people at gun point.  When we tried to tell him what happened, the guard basically pulled one of those DeNiro lines, "Am I talking to you!?"     So our solution was to take the guest pass back, exit the gym, and I'll sign my friend back in.  The guest pass would then serve as a receipt so my friend won't have to pay another $10 needlessly.  At this point, we were actually cooperating and trying to follow the rules.     Except the guard, or some inexplicable reason, won't give the pass back.  He insisted on having us look for the guy who signed the guest in, wanted us to go down to track the person now.  NYU gym is not exactly small, and this could take who knows how long.    And at this point, the other ID checker, who was a student, chimed in.  No school spirit here.  He gave us a smug laugh and told us to look.  And for some reason, he told us that we were not only following the rule, we were actually trying to do something shady or sinister.     Finally, the student at guard thought he was being a smart ass, so he called his manager, hoping to get us kicked out.  When the manager came, we explained our situation, and the manager let us through without saying much at all!  The student and the security guard were embarrassed, but of course gave us the incredulous looks to save face.     Lesson here?  Sure.  For tasks as mundane as checking people in at the door, it is still about service, and service has to be performed with some degree of reason and compassion, especially when it is a student facility, and the people involved are all affiliated with the same school.  Too often, people hide behind the little bit of authority that they get and abuse it, while it takes a lot of encourage to weild power responsibly.     Another lesson here?  Sure.  The service at NYU gym sucks!  We get what we pay for I guess.  The gym membership is cheap!  And we get basketball courts and an awesome swimming pool.     Two other things to note at NYU Coles:   1.  They don't have the ability to give out change... Meaning as a policy, they can't give you 2 $10s for a $20.   2.  When you hurt yourself, they don't have ice.