I had my first PT session with a trainer at my college gym today, and halfway through the session he sat me down and told me he’s never been as uncomfortable with a client like this in recent years, felt disrespected, and had to stop the session.

I was shocked, because I’ve not said or done anything inappropriate at all - in fact, I was engaged throughout the session and asked lots of questions. According to him, he didn’t like that I was late and didn’t pay for the package upfront, which I can understand… he seemed quite upset about it but I had my reasons.

I didn’t sleep well last night and had to travel quite a bit (~30min) to get to the gym, so I arrived late but informed him before hand. I also tend to make the payments after every session, or at least having met the PT first, because it’s not a small amount of money for me! There’s also no contract of sorts, so I was concerned about situations where the remaining sessions are not fulfilled.

At the start, I also mentioned I would pay him right afterwards. During our conversation, I mentioned that if it was urgent to him, he could have asked me to pay right then and I would have done it. He said it’s not about the money, more that I didn’t respect his system and his occupation.

I’m pretty stunned. I apologised several times because I really didn’t know he felt that way. I’ve never encountered a situation like this before. At the same time, I also feel pretty upset now… was I wrong? I’m new to this so I don’t know if I stepped over some general trainer boundaries that I’m unaware of. I just wanted to train… :(