Companies That I Hate More Than AIDS… (and I hate AIDS)

Yes,  I am very aware that I havent posted anything in quite some time, and yes, I am also aware that Penn State went out and beat LSUSECOMG in the Capital One Bowl on Friday, which was awesome, but today, I am going to be posting about something completely non-football related… Companies that I hate more than anything… more than AIDS…

1. BALLY’S TOTAL BULLSHIT FITNESS

Fuck this company.  I signed up (foolishly) over 4 years ago for a 3 year contract to attend their bullshit fitness facility.  I went for about 2 years, and then my office moved and I moved, and it was no longer convenient for me to go to Bally’s anymore.  So I called about trying to cancel my membership.  After 634 phone calls, I finally got someone on the phone.  The first 633 phone calls were answered by a recorded message saying something to the effect of “We’re sorry, but our company is a scam, so therefore we only have 4 under-aged customer service workers in New Delhi.  You are currently the 316,852nd customer in line, so we aren’t even going to give you the option of waiting to speak with someone.  Try back when your contract is up!”  This person told me that if i wanted to cancel my contract, i had to submit a hand written letter to Bally’s Corporate.  I did this.  2 months later, they sent me a letter back saying that they could not cancel my membership early, because there was a Bally’s within 20 miles of where i moved.  20 miles!  Do you know how long it takes to travel 20 miles in the Philadelphia area?   I would need to take the afternoon off of work in order to get to the gym before it closed. 

So whatever, I had a year left that i was going to pay $40/month for.  3 years and 3 months after I originally signed up, I spotted a $40 charge on my card from Ballys, and I looked back at my previous two statements and there were $40 charges on those as well.  They kept my membership going after my 3 year contract had expired, and were charging me for it, even though i sent them a hand written letter like they had asked me to do to cancel it.  So I call customer service again, and again I spend several days trying to reach a human being on the phone, and as soon as I do, i demand to speak to a supervisor.  At this point, a snot-nosed high school drop out named ‘Barry’ gets on the phone, and continues to tell me over and over again that there is nothing they can do other than cancel my contract from that day on, and that they could not give me a refund.  Finally I give up arguing, call him a scheister , and hang up the phone.  At least i know i will never have to deal with these fuck heads again, right? 

Today, and this is about 5 or 6 months later, my old roommate stops over to my place to visit, and drops off some old mail that i have accumulated over there.  In that stack of mail, there was a letter from FUCKING BALLY’S TELLING ME THAT I OWE THEM $15 PER MONTH FOR THE PAST 4 MONTHS, AND MY NEW BALANCE IS $60, AND THAT I SHOULD PAY THEM BEFORE THEY SEND ME TO COLLECTIONS!!!  I could barely contain my rage as i started yelling at the letter.  Apparently that douche bag Barry only cancelled my auto bill pay, and didn’t cancel my membership as i had tried to do twice now, and my new membership fee is $15 per month.  I immediately call Ballys, face red with anger.  After smashing zero a bunch of times, unwilling to listen to the auto options, I find that they, of course, aren’t open on weekends and can only be reached during business hours. 

FUCK BALLYS

2. THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY

This is the biggest piece of shit restaurant that I could ever imagine.  I would rather walk in, give the hostess my name and $100, have her punch me in the face, then walk out and go home bloodied and bruised, then ever go back to this shitty eatery again. 

First of all, they should have a trap door in front of the hostess stand at the Cheesecake Factory. Any idiot that listens to their stripper turned restarant worker hostess tell them that there is a 2 hour wait to eat AT THE FUCKING CHEESECAKE FACTORY and DOESN’T tell them they are fucking crazy and walk out, should be pushed into the witch-pit and forced to fight their way out like Ash in Army of Darkness.

My girlfriend still wanted to stay and wait, so, because this was my first time at the Cheesecake Factory,  and because she drove, we decided to wait it out.  We went to the overcrowded bar and I paid $20 for two drinks.  This turns out to be the best part of the evening.  After a few drinks, our buzzer finally went off, (we had to wait 45 minutes until we could even get a fucking buzzer so that we could officially be waiting) and the hostess grabbed two menus and said, ‘right this way’.  I then asked her is she was leading us to the room where they give out the free european style handjobs to the people who waited over two hours for a table.  She nervously chuckled, in a ‘brushing off sexual harrasment’ kind of way.  My girlfriend was not amused. 

She starts leading us to our table, and the sights and sounds begin to look familiar to me.  She lead us right back to the fucking bar, and sat us 8 inches from a flamboyant gay couple and their two yappy lady friends who were just elated, I’m sure, to be able to sit and enjoy an overpriced meal and  discuss purses and shoes with a couple of guys who very obviously weren’t trying to fuck them for once.  And 8 inches to our other side, was another two couples, but they were overpowered by the homosexuals in conversation and I barely noticed them at all, until the one guy said to me, ‘Excuse me, but that was the coolest fucking thing i have ever seen’ when i took my double cheeseburger that I ordered and smashed it down with the palm of my hand very impolitely. 

Anyways, we ordered a couple of appetizers, just a few feet from where we had waited 2 hours for our ‘table’ to begin with.  They came, and weren’t too bad.  Then when we were half way done with our appetizers, the kitchen bitch, or whatever the name of the person who runs the food from the kitchen to the table is, tried to bring us our meals, when there very obviously wasnt any room for them at our postage stamp sized table.  We finished our appetizers, and the brought our food back, and at first it wasnt terrible.  I got a double bacon cheeseburger, and it was decent, but it was just a cheeseburger, nothing special.  We get a slice of cheesecake to go for later, pay our bill, and finally we are out of that idiot trap. 

I thought it was over.  I thought there was no way that The Cheesecake Factory could fuck me ever again.  I was wrong.  About 5am I woke up and I felt like there was some sort of vomit house party going on in my stomach, and everyone was about to get thrown out.  I run to the bathroom and stare at the toilet for a good 45 minutes before deciding to just camp out there on the bathroom floor for the night.  I woke up an hour or two later, and was brave enough to sit on the couch, but not to lay down.  I slept another hour or so sitting upright on the couch, but then spent the rest of the morning shitting my brains out. 

FUCK YOU, CHEESECAKE FACTORY

3. Whatever the company is that makes circus peanuts… FUCK YOU

That’s it for now… I have more, but I will revisit them at a later time… good to be back!