Swim Rant

Corporate Idiocy (another overly redundant oxymoron) My place of employment actually offers a "Fitness reimbursement". They will reimburse the employee 50% up to $250 (so 1/2 of 500) of health club fees, fitness classes, stationary exercise equipment. :applaud: I bought my elliptical under this last year.:groovy: However, they will not cover "recreational equipment" such as bikes, golf clubs, tennis, etc.:mad: So if you were a triathlete who never went on a stationary cycle or indoor treadmill, you are excluded totally! As we are now into the new year and I can submit again, I asked our HR rep who is supposed to handle the program at our location if I could submit my masters swimming club and USMS registration fees. She forwards it to a corp benefits rep (as our local rep doesn't seem to be able to handle any of it herself :rolleyes: ) but prefaces the request by indicating, "I don't think this should be covered but...." and then makes it sound like they are my swimming club dues (like a local neighborhood pool) or swimming classes. The corp rep automatically backs her and says they don't cover swim lessons or fees to a local recreation center. :frustrated: I replied back to both of them indicating that these are supervised directed workouts and definitely for FITNESS purposes! I gave them links to the USMS site and our local Masters site. :argue: Letting them know that this is not just lounging around on a raft under a diving board with a umbrella drink! I have to wait and see if they can do more than just read their policy; it specifically uses the example of aerobics classes or jazzercize-so the reps look only for those titles. Now if we can just get those folks in corporate to understand that we swim miles a day in the pool and are in better shape than any foo foo aerobics class or trendy jazzercize class taker..... Although this could be like teaching the proverbial pig to sing!!!! :D Maybe I can get our club to call these "water aerobics" classes!!!:thhbbb: Problem is I doth protest too much and have already shown up on the HR radar by raising this issue and "making them 'think' ". (I also need to get the the local recreation center to call my karate classes something like "cardio kickboxing' so maybe these idiots will cover it too.....) Anybody else with this problem?

Corporate Idiocy (another overly redundant oxymoron) My place of employment actually offers a "Fitness reimbursement". They will reimburse the employee 50% up to $250 (so 1/2 of 500) of health club fees, fitness classes, stationary exercise equipment. :applaud: I bought my elliptical under this last year.:groovy: However, they will not cover "recreational equipment" such as bikes, golf clubs, tennis, etc.:mad: So if you were a triathlete who never went on a stationary cycle or indoor treadmill, you are excluded totally! As we are now into the new year and I can submit again, I asked our HR rep who is supposed to handle the program at our location if I could submit my masters swimming club and USMS registration fees. She forwards it to a corp benefits rep (as our local rep doesn't seem to be able to handle any of it herself :rolleyes: ) but prefaces the request by indicating, "I don't think this should be covered but...." and then makes it sound like they are my swimming club dues (like a local neighborhood pool) or swimming classes. The corp rep automatically backs her and says they don't cover swim lessons or fees to a local recreation center. :frustrated: I replied back to both of them indicating that these are supervised directed workouts and definitely for FITNESS purposes! I gave them links to the USMS site and our local Masters site. :argue: Letting them know that this is not just lounging around on a raft under a diving board with a umbrella drink! I have to wait and see if they can do more than just read their policy; it specifically uses the example of aerobics classes or jazzercize-so the reps look only for those titles. Now if we can just get those folks in corporate to understand that we swim miles a day in the pool and are in better shape than any foo foo aerobics class or trendy jazzercize class taker..... Although this could be like teaching the proverbial pig to sing!!!! :D Maybe I can get our club to call these "water aerobics" classes!!!:thhbbb: Problem is I doth protest too much and have already shown up on the HR radar by raising this issue and "making them 'think' ". (I also need to get the the local recreation center to call my karate classes something like "cardio kickboxing' so maybe these idiots will cover it too.....) Anybody else with this problem?