Personal trainer fat-shames a client. Client retaliates with a letter that's now going viral.

Ah, Reddit. The place people go to post things when they have nowhere else to post it on the entire Interwebz.

This week on Reddit, one particular thread is absolutely going off. It was posted by Reddit user GrantKish, who works in sales. His boss received an unsolicited email from his personal trainer and he decided to reply with something super-snarky.

Here’s the original email from Brady, the Personal Trainer (ignore the typos):

Hey Clint,

I noticed you haven’t been using the gym at all lately, only 8 times in 3 months, and I want to sit down and have another talk about personal training with you. It is definitely your best option, as we need to reduce your bodyfat before that becomes a bigger health issue, which it if left unattended.

Personal training is the best way to get motivated, get new ideas and techniques for your workouts, and learn about nutrition that will affect the rest of your life in a positive way.

We can chat about all your options and fiture out what works best for you

Let me know when you can come in

Thanks!

Brady

And here’s the reply from Mr Boss Person, Clint:

Hi Brady,

Thanks for the email – I think…

I haven’t had the chance to get in that often because to be honest I find that the gym is full of douche bag dickheads, the locker rooms are overcrowded and a large percentage of the equipment doesn’t work to what my membership costs says it should, and now I have to provide my own lock.

I’ve actually been running 3-4 times a week (min) and feel I am in the best shape I’ve been in for quite a few years- your approach of informing me that my ONLY option (with the grace of a velvet sledge hammer) is to pay over $100 per session a gym that pretty much pisses me off or I will probably die from body fat.

I appreciate your concern for my impending doom if I do not tend to my bodyfat issue but I however do not appreciate the manner in which you have presented it. I haven’t hit the gym much lately because I am currently working my ass off on target to make 6 figures. See, I am in sales. I know how to sell. I live, breathe, eat, sh*t and sleep sales. So, in saying that, how about this…let me know when you can sit down with ME and I will show you how to sell. Maybe then you won’t have to threaten potential clients with the sh*t you threw at me.

Let me know when is a good time for you.

Thanks,

Clint

So there you go. Clint’s employee was so proud of his boss’ reply that he decided to share it with the online world. And general consensus from the online world has really been one of the two reactions:

1) Brady was being a douchey personal trainer by sending what was probably a form email to one of his clients – and a rather rude, impersonal form email, at that – and Clint’s response was absolutely epic and well-deserved by Brady.

2) Clint was being an even bigger douche by sending back a super-snarky email, dropping his salary in there for no apparent reason and generally implying that he’s the better human being because he’s in sales and earns the somewhat-bigger bucks. It’s not Brady’s fault that the gym isn’t quite up to Clint’s standards, and he was trying to be a good motivator by looking up exactly how often Clint was coming along – how is Brady supposed to know he’s been running instead?

While they’re the main reactions, there’s also a sub-bandwagon kicking off in sympathy for the personal trainer, who’s probably just a 20-something guy that doesn’t earn a whole lot of cash and is just trying to make a living. And admittedly, he does make a fair point – if you have the money for it, and you have a decent trainer, personal training can be a really good way to cater for exactly what you’d like to improve on.

That said, the only personal trainer I ever had (a free one provided by a gym when I first joined – please, I’m not made of money) only ever made comments about how the right hand side of my body was much stronger than my left. He wouldn’t have dared make comment about my bodyfat, otherwise that bodyfat would have shown him how hard it could punch him in the nose.

What do you think of the email chain? Whose side are you on?