Paying Your Coach

[icemom60]

A question for all the coaches out there. Is there a way to pay your coach without it feeling just a little bit awkward?

My son has three different coaches. Whenever I pay them there's this brief awkward moment when I hand them their check. I sense that the moment is awkward for them as well. They generally take the check and quickly put it in their pocket. I've noticed this with all of them and experienced this feeling with a past coach as well so I wondering if there's a better way to do this.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions.

[AshBugg44]

Okay AS a coach, I agree that the moment of handing over the money is sometimes kind of awkward! I always tell them thank you and make a bit of conversation about the lesson so that I don't feel like I'm just taking their money and running. ;)

[Debbie S]

Hmmm, I pay my coach pretty much the same way - hand her the check, she thanks me, puts it in her jacket pocket, and that's that. It doesn't seem awkward to me. They provided a service, you paid for it, and life goes on. I also thank my coach after each lesson (but since she bills monthly, I only pay her once a month).

[Skittl1321]

I don't know why you would feel ackward. You are paying for a service rendered. You pay for things like this all the time.

Maybe some suggestions:
Pay less often. My coach requires lessons be paid the week before (so you essentially just pay at each lesson- but really it's for the next week's lesson, not the one you are taking). It's easier for me to pay with a check than cash- so I write one check for the entire next month the last lesson of the previous month. That way I only have to deal with paying once. If for some reason a lesson gets canceled (like this week is adult nationals and I forgot about that my coach would be gone) I just make a note of it, and pay the first week of the next month, instead of the last week of the current one.

Something that seems to be employed by many skaters at our rink. Make your kid pay. Kids will skate up to the coach to start their lesson- hand the coach a check. Coach pockets it, lesson begins.

But I don't think there is anything to feel ackward about. Unless your coach is your best friend or a family member, you shouldn't feel weird paying them, and they shouldn't feel weird being paid for their work.

[kayskate]

Don't feel awkward. Your coach wants to get paid. I love getting my checks. I'll take cash too. We are working for a living, as much as we may like coaching and skating. Some rinks give receipts to clients and the student/parent gives a copy to the coach for payment. The rink pays the coach less commission. I have done both. Yes, we shove it in the pocket. Staring at it would be more awkward. Sometimes I think: "Thank goodness, I need this $."

Kay

[fsk8r]

When I had to pay a coach by cheque I used to skate up to him whilst he was still finishing the previous lesson and would hand it over as I skated past. There was a brief awkward moment, but he was always concentrating on the previous lesson, so it wasn't very long.
At my current rink, I buy tickets from the counter which get passed to the coaches. It's a lot less awkward to hand those over, and I generally pay per lesson. I try and do it at the start of the lesson, although I find I can forget if I'm not thinking about it, and they end up hiding at the bottom of a pocket.

I still haven't worked out why it's an awkward moment paying for the lesson with a cheque, but we don't have as much of it with the ticket system. I do like paying for the lessons as I have them as I know where I am with them.

[Sessy]

Well everything for the ice skating club just goes through bank transfers, which means that the first training of a month (or by mail if I'm not there) I get a note saying how much I owe them and for what, and I've a month to get the money transferred to their account.

For ballet I pay like... Well once a month. I just go to him after class and I tell him, Zhenia, how much do I owe you? And he takes out his notebook and counts the number of lessons and I pay up and he puts a cross under each of the lessons I paid.

[smelltheice]

They have the ticket system at Blackpool (UK) as well and have done for many years and it does remove any awkwardness one might feel because you are paying the money to a metaphorically faceless employee. I guess it is because the skater/parent is on first name terms with the coach and there is a more personal element to the coach/skater/parent relationship. There is no counter between you and them and so it feels like you are handing money to a friend as opposed to viewing them as a professional person.

[Luckster013]

I understand how that can be a little akward. Where I skate each of the coaches has a little mailbox in the back that you can put checks, notes, or whatever in and they pick it up later. They're way in the back behind the concession stand so they're safe fom public skaters. I think alot of other rinks have these also, and maybe your does as well. If you just pay once a month you could just slip the check in their box and your coach can pick it up after you leave and completely avoid the akwardness.

[Kim to the Max]

I have never found it awkward...even as a kid when I would have to pay my coach myself...it's no big deal....

Now, usually I put the cash in my CD case because I don't want it out in the open on the ice, and when we do my program, she just takes the cash...it's not because it would be awkward to hand her a check or cash, it's just that the cash is there....What will be awkward is that my coach only charges $10 for a test session, which I feel is not enough, so I will probably give her a bit more or will get her a gas card or something...but that's me being me....

[GordonSk8erBoi]

For some reason paying cash would be awkward for me, I think, but paying by check isn't. I usually pay my coach in advance twice a month (for that lesson and the following one or two depending) so it's not every week. I like paying in advance because I know I'm set, plus if for some reason I have to cancel it's more incentive for me to just take two lessons the following week or something rather than be lazy.

Also, my coach (like many I think) requires 12 hrs notice before a cancellation, otherwise you still owe her for the lesson. It would be awkward to me to have to pay her the following week for the lesson we didn't have but since I've paid in advance it's always covered.

I've never had a coach be awkward about being paid, just be businesslike about it. My first coach did call me once because she left her check in her pants and it went through the wash :-). I just wrote her another one.

Now, what did make me feel awkward was a few weeks ago when my coach insisted on not being paid for that lesson because we had talked most of the time. We had talked about what to do next (after competition) and other related coaching stuff, so I was perfectly fine on paying her for that, but she insisted.

[Lmarletto]

My daughter has 2 freestyle/moves lessons per week and I write a check to that coach at the end of the second lesson each week. She has one dance lesson per week and I pay the coach in cash at the end of each lesson. When I hand them the check/cash, they say "thank you" and then I say "thank you" because I genuinely do appreciate what they do. After that we move on to other conversation or say "See you next week" or whatever is appropriate. At first I felt a bit awkward but I think that was more because I felt obligated to make small talk with someone I really didn't know personally. As I got to know them better, I had an easier time making small talk and also felt less obligated to do so.

I try to avoid having my daughter hand over the $$. I always tell her, "My job is to pay - your job is to PAY ATTENTION." But every now and then the coaches will have to go directly into another lesson without leaving the ice and then I will have her take the $$ back out to them.

[teresa]

I've never felt funny as a skater paying my coach. She's a coach, I'm the student, and I pay her for her time to help me learn. Coaching is her job and I'm spending time with her at the rink because I want to skate. I think if everyone is responsible as a coach and student things should be fine. If this really bothers you, talk to her. You can't fix or understand what you don't discuss. To be honest, I think not paying would be a difficult position. 8O If your new to skating you better learn to talk to your childs coach. If all goes well you may know them for awhile!

teresa

[dbny]

We always paid our DD's violin teacher by cash in an envelope, and I do wish my students would pay me that way because then I could be sure they were giving me the right amount, and not too much accidently, which has possibly happened.

[fsk8r]

My sister's coach invoices once a month and posts the invoice to the house. She does this because she's known children to lose the envelope between the ice rink and home. But it does mean that the parents can just post the cheque back. My sister has told her that she may as well save the stamp and give her the envelope, and I think she finds it less awkward having the invoice/cheque/cash in an envelope as you never know it might not be that, but could be just a letter!

[Mrs Redboots]

It doesn't worry me. Coach1 said yesterday (we pay on Wednesdays) that he was going to get a cup of tea, so I said "Hang on a minute, I've some money for you" and he came over and I got my purse out and found his cheque and the very awkward amount of cash we have to pay for the ice (I have managed to have the right change so far....) and handed them to him. And we reminded each other that next week's lessons would all be on Tuesday as there are tests on Wednesday, and then he went off to get his tea and I went back on the ice for a few minutes.

[isakswings]

Interesting. I've never experienced that before. We just thank them and pay them. I wonder why the exchange can be uncomfortable for some?

[SkatingOnClouds]

I feel awkward, even though I don't understand it either. I'm on pretty good terms with the coach DD & I both have, and in some ways she is a friend as much as a coach. Handing over the cash brings it back to a different relationship, and it just doesn't feel comfortable.
I like the idea of handing over a token or receipt, somehow not the same as money.

[Skate@Delaware]

It isn't akward for me-I hand her the check, folded in half and just say, "here" she takes it and says "thanks" and stuffs it in her pocket. That's it. If I don't have it in my pocket to give her right after lesson, then I tell her I'll give it to her in a few minutes-no problem, I give it to her when we are taking off our skates (I never interrupt her during lessons with her other students).

[Kim to the Max]

(I never interrupt her during lessons with her other students).

I try not to interrupt as well. I feel that that is rude. However, it happens to me all the time :frus: as many skaters will stop and talk with coach (particularly when she is in a lesson with me...I don't notice it as much when she is with others, but then again I'm probably not paying too close attention).

[Skate@Delaware]

I try not to interrupt as well. I feel that that is rude. However, it happens to me all the time :frus: as many skaters will stop and talk with coach (particularly when she is in a lesson with me...I don't notice it as much when she is with others, but then again I'm probably not paying too close attention).
My coach does excuse herself to talk very briefly with the mom of the skater who takes prior to me, but it is very brief and I am ok with it. She does not chat with other skaters on the ice during lessons tho (not even with me, she says to "catch up with me later").

For someone so young she is very proper and has her boundaries and rules. She is 26 (I'm more relaxed at my 46 years). But I highly respect her.

[slusher]

The routine at our rink is at the beginning of the session all the skaters report to their coaches, it's a scrumble, they get told who is getting a lesson and what they should be doing otherwise, and that is the moment that all the skaters hand over their envelopes before they get onto it. So it's accepted that the kids pay their coaches, the parents send them on the ice clutching their envelopes even the teeny ones.

I have a hard time with the part time dance partners who don't bill, or who do and then move onto another rink and one coach who never bills, she's too busy during the season so any minute now I'm waiting for a hundreds of dollars bill to land in my skate bag, I know it's coming but it is 8O8O8O to see that amount all at once.