Promptituity

Today begins our four-part series on How To Get A Massage.

Part One

Be On Time.

Seriously. I know it would seem obvious and why in the world would you ever be late for a massage but it happens all the time!

I did it myself just last Friday. I had a massage scheduled with Donna, the owner of the spa I'm on call for. I also had training for my new business Friday morning. It was supposed to be from 8a - 10a but John (the seller) didn't leave until 11:30 and my homework was to hand-write 20 letters to our clients. I was deep in the midst of this when the phone rang at 2:10p. You know how when you forget something and the phone rings and you look at the clock and think, "Dammit!" because you remember? Didn't happen. Not even when I saw Donna's name on the phone! All I thought was, "Oh, it's Donna. It's always so lovely when she calls." Oh course, when I answered and she asked where I was, then I rememb... nope. Not even then. "At home," I said, completely oblivious. Then she reminded me of my appointment and was kind enough to give me a grace, so I leaped into the shower, dressed and ran out the door. I'm a dolt.

Normally, when you have a massage, you need to be on time. It's unfair to expect a grace. Either your therapist has someone scheduled after you or they have a life outside the massage office that they'd like to get back to. I was very lucky that Donna was so understanding.

You would not believe the foolishness we had to put up with at the spa I where I used to work. There was the time these people came to the hotel late and one of our desk guys happened to be at the main hotel when they showed up. These people told him their flight was late and that they'd be right over to the spa as soon as they checked in. Well, a half-hour later, our desk guy called them in their room to see where they were. They said, "Oh, we thought we were the last ones and that it didn't matter when we came down." WTF?? They were the last appointments for the evening with one empty time slot behind each person. Since we as therapists had lives we wanted to get on with (as I already mentioned), we put in some fake appointments after these yay-hoos' scheduled time and gave them each what time they had left in their massages (about 20 of the 50 minutes scheduled) and charged them full price.

People at that spa would always expect you to just go into someone else's massage time or that you, as a therapist, were to just stick around and wait on them for whatever reason. Don't get me wrong. We, as massage therapists, are generally a very understanding people and if there's a late plane or traffic jam, we'll try to accommodate as best we can. But if we can't, don't' get mad or pushy. If you do, we'll just flat out tell you that we can't work on you and would you like to reschedule, oh, and you'll have to pay the therapist's fee for the massage you missed.

If the therapist is able to accommodate and still give you your full time, you might reflect your gratitude when you tip. (We'll cover tipping later.)

That about covers it for now.

Part Two next week, Ruth!

[ Part 2 ]
[ Part 3 ]
[ Part 4 ]
[ The Super Gross Stuff ]

P. S. "Promptituity" hee, hee, I just love making up new words!