The 30 minute time limit. When does it begin?

Let me begin by saying that I’ve researched where to ask this question, and feel this is the best place. I, in no way, believe this to be a “great” debate, but there is no factual answer, and I want to hear both sides of the story to see if I’m getting it wrong. If it needs to be moved, so be it. Though I’ve lurked here for some time, I bow to the masses who have posted to decide.

My gym, as most gyms, has a rule that states verbatim, “There is a 30 minute time limit on all cardiovascular equipment when machines are fully occupied.”

Now, the simplistic reading of this rule would require me to get off the treadmill when I hit 30 minutes if there is someone waiting. Right? But…

I get to the gym real early. 5 AM. I get on the machine. The machines begin to fill up and are generally full at about 5:30. My reading of the rule says that I am on the clock at 5:30 (or whenever there is someone waiting). My 30 minute time limit begins then, regardless of how long I’ve been on it. In other words, before anyone was on line for the equipment, I was in essence getting back in line on a continual basis; once someone else is actually in line, I am now behind that person for my own machine and am therefore on the 30 minute clock.

I tried to explain this theory once to someone asking me to get off the machine, and I wasn’t being fully understood. I decided to come to a more intelligent group of people. What say you?

(ok, so I came out of lurkerhood for this…)

Ask the management. Most rules in a private business are not open for personal interpretation, or debate.

This is probably more of an IMO topic because…

IMO, if you’ve already been on the equipment for 30+ minutes and someone walks up, then you should yield to the new person.

While I understand your point, you would require the next person using the machine to actually stand in line for an additional 30 minutes to use the equipment. Would you like to waste 30 minutes waiting for a machine to clear that someone had been using all day?

Oh, and welcome aboard!

wow–this is a serious problem, and we just gotta solve it quick, or else the terrorists will have won.

The sign says 30 minutes “when machines are fully occupied”.Therefore when the machines are not all occupied, there is no 30min limit.

The logic seems to be that the management doesnt want people bored and impatiently waiting for more than 30 minutes.
So if the place is empty (except for you) at 5:00 , but at 5:20 a dozen people walk in together and take all 12 available machines, then the next person to enter, say at 5:25, will have to wait 30 minutes, till somebody gets off.But if you were on your machine since 5:00, you are no more obligated to get off than someone who started at 5:20
On the other hand, if the person who enters at 5:25 is acting suspicious and tries to light the detonater in his shoes…

See, that’s only if there is only one machine. But, there are multiple machines, and in all likelihood that person first on line would not have to wait till I finish as someone else will have vacated prior.

I’m not so much interested in management’s opinion, oddly enough. I know what they would say. They would go with the simple answer.

I’m more interested in what people think the right answer should be, not what it actually is.

I’d have to say the obvious interpretation is that you have thirty minutes once all machines are full, not one minute if machines just happen to fill up after 29 minutes. The language does seem pretty clear.

It is hard to see how it could be otherwise, given the phrasing.

It is quite possible that the literal reading is exactly what the framers had in mind, giving people waiting an idea of how long they’d have to wait. After all, if you work out for ten minutes, the machines fill up for ten minutes, then in the “last ten” (given the more strict interpretation) they open up again… who is going to ask you to get off? And if someone just walks up when the machines are full, how are they to know who should get kicked off first if the “30 minutes” is retroactive?

There’s no need for any kind of ethical ambiguity here. The 30 minutes start clocking when the machines fill up. It is the only method that allows people to know when they should get off the machines… or when you should ask someone else to get off the machines. The other reading, while it might sound like it makes sense, is impossible in practice without someone constantly monitoring the equipment, visible timers, etc. But if that really was the intent, the rule would be much, much more simple: thirty minutes on a machine, period.

You are a five-year lurker and you are complaining about a 30 minute limit? :slight_smile:

I think a limit like that is imposed specially for times like this: this is January, when many couch potatoes decide to start their new year’s resolution to lose weight.

Many of those “new year resoluters” will give up in a few weeks more, and the limit will in effect be gone when people are no longer waiting for machines, and unless I have missed something, that is a limit that is not set in stone: usually, if there is no one waiting, one can safely skip the limit.

Therein lies the rub.

Well, this was why I put this in “Great Debates” in the first place. I don’t see this as earth shattering, but I’m kind of guaging my own ethics in so far as I have something that actually affects me. Does that make sense?

I think the right answer is that the rule implies that if you have been on the machine for more than 30 minutes, you need to get off if someone wants it/shows up. My gym has the same rule. It makes little practical difference because most people won’t do 30 minutes, but theoretically, you are wrong.

I typed out a bunch of scenarios where your logic fails but it became too cumbersome Basically your rules increase the probability someone could stay on indefinately and increase the average amount of time someone has to wait. If you’ve been on more than 30 minutes, and someone asks you to get off, you need to get off. The rule should really say “Please don’t be a dick”, but I doubt that would help most people.

I will explain further if you like, but I think you realize what the rule means and how it should be applied.

Fyl: My reading of the rule says that I am on the clock at 5:30 (or whenever there is someone waiting). My 30 minute time limit begins then, regardless of how long I’ve been on it.

I can see how that would be a logical reading of the rule, but I don’t think it’s the most sensible or productive interpretation. I think it makes the most sense, and provides the most benefit to the most users, to take it as Ruby and brickbacon did: i.e., the “clock” is always running, but you don’t have to pay attention to it unless the machines get full.

In other words, you are entitled to use the machine for 30 minutes at a time, but if nobody’s waiting for it at the end of your half-hour, you can go on using it. On the other hand, once you’ve had your thirty minutes, no matter how empty or full the machines were for most of that time, if there are people waiting at the thirtieth minute, your session is over and you give place to somebody else.

So if you start your workout at 5:30 and the machines don’t fill up till 5:59, you have to get off the machine at 6:00, not at 6:29. Similarly, if you started your workout at 5:25, you get off immediately when they fill up at 5:59, because you’ve had your 30 minutes and then some, and now you’re keeping other people waiting.

I think this “simplistic” interpretation is not only more considerate of other people’s schedules (after all, if you’ve been working away for a couple of hours in an empty gym, it does seem rather hoggy to insist on a full additional 30 minutes because “the clock doesn’t start until the machines fill up”), but also, as you suggest, simpler to use. After all, it’s generally easier for people to keep track of when they started their workout than to be constantly alert to note the exact moment when the machines got full.

Just note your start time, look around now and then while you’re working out, and if you see people waiting any time after you’ve completed your first half-hour, get yer butt off the machine immediately and wait in the queue for another turn.

In any case, Puffs is of course right that the only thing that really matters is how the gym management interprets the rule, because their interpretation is what you need to abide by. And the management will naturally prefer the “simplistic” interpretation because it results in fewer dissatisfied customers having to wait around while all the current users hang onto the machines for a full extra half-hour, whether they’ve already been using them for five minutes or fifty. Under the “simplistic” interpretation, the machines will probably get freed up more quickly.

I agree that you should get off if you have been on 30 min or longer when people are now waiting for the machines. The main point of the rule would seem to be to give everyone a chance to fit their workout into their daily schedule. If you’ve gotten in 30 minutes and others are waiting, then you should let them on the machine.

So, assuming I know for a fact that all the machines will fill up at 5:30, would ethics, and/or logic preclude me from getting on a machine at 5:00, jumping off at 5:29. Walking to the area where people wait. No one is there (it is one minute early), walking back to the machine and getting on for another full 30 minutes?

I guess my question is, in a real world scenario, have I simply used logic to justify something that I’m doing anyway, or am I justified in my logic?

Ethically, I think that is a good interpretation of the rule. But then, of course, the matter is simple: “Thirty minute limit on machines.” That, however, is not the rule we are met with.

I feel the same way about all the menus that refuse to use the Oxford comma in their menus. “Dinners include a choice of soup, salad, fries and coleslaw” or something. Is “fries and coleslaw” one item? Most people say no. I say, if they meant it that way, there is a perfectly good puncuation symbol to use that they are obviously aware of. (Not that I argue with waitresses about it, mind. Just sayin’.)

Except for that nagging “impossible to enforce” aspect. If all you want to rely on is people’s moral duty to their fellow man working out, there’s no need for a rule at all.

You know what the right thing to do is. You can justify the skirting of many rules/laws, it doesn’t make it right. Instead of trying to convince yourself you are right, you should act in the spirit in which the rule was created. Basically the rule is saying, please be courteous to other people and respect their time. I’m sure if you respond to someone who asks you to use the machine with a polite request for a few additional minutes (instead of trying to engage him with poor logic), you would get much different results.

In the US, I believe both ways (comma, no comma) are acceptable. I think the context is the only thing that might arrouse confusion. In this case, I think we can rule that out.

Most machines at my gym have a large timer which can be seen by anyone within a few yards. Anyone who has been waiting can look at the machine and see that if the timer is at 30+ minutes, they can reasonable ask you to use the machine. It is the other method which is unenforceable

This has not been mentioned so far. If this is the case, then I would definitely change my answer as to which was the most contextually obvious interpretation.

erl: If all you want to rely on is people’s moral duty to their fellow man working out, there’s no need for a rule at all.

Well, even if that’s all you’re trying to do, it could still be helpful to provide a uniform rule about what that duty entails: “If you’ve been on a machine for 30 minutes or more and there are people waiting for it, it’s your duty to get off.”

And as you noted subsequently, if the machines have per-session timers, then enforceability becomes very simple.

Fyl: I guess my question is, in a real world scenario, have I simply used logic to justify something that I’m doing anyway

Well, it kinda sounds like it to me. Seems like the ethical thing to do is to follow the rules as you know that the gym management meant them to be followed (since you’ve already admitted that you know they agree with the “simplistic” or “30-minutes-max” interpretation), rather than trying to use your alternative “theory” to scrounge an extra half-hour that the rules don’t entitle you to.

erl: I feel the same way about all the menus that refuse to use the Oxford comma in their menus. “Dinners include a choice of soup, salad, fries and coleslaw” or something.

And btw, I think the real problem here isn’t the omission of the Oxford comma after “fries”, which as brickbacon points out is optional in the US. Rather, it’s the incorrect use of “and” instead of “or”. If you’re choosing one item from a set of options, you have a “choice of x, y, or z”, not of “x, y, and z”. (I suppose you could equally well have a “choice among x, y, and z”, but we don’t see it expressed that way very often.)

However, I agree with you on the basic principle that commercial establishments ought to be more careful about proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, and clarity of written communication in general. It would make their meaning more clear, avert misunderstandings, and involve very little extra effort.