is this spa massage??

Five months ago, illness in the family forced my relocation from MS to GA so that my wife could care for her slowly dying mother.  In MS, I had a thriving private practice; in GA, I had to start from scratch.

It took six months to get my GA license to practice.  By then, I was desperate.  The first place I contacted hired me.  A day spa.  Seven LMTs on staff, three estheticians including the owner, and four manicurists.  

The demo massage I gave the owner was conducted in a small room separated from another room by folding partition; the two are used for couples massage, and I was assigned the smaller.  Head of table plenty of space, but foot of table was about twelve inches from a wall. "Stuff" was underfoot.  And she brought her little dog into the room.  Now, he was well-behaved, when I started around the table, he got up and moved to the other side-- but I didn't know he'd do that.  Plus, it was a test, right? Like many of you, I get a little nervous giving a demo massage.

I asked if she had any issues that needed handling.  Her upper back and shoulders, she said, "You'll feel the knots."  First, I used effleurage to warm the entire back, ten minutes or so, then easily located a TP in left side posterior scalene, and one in right side subscapularis.  Using very little pressure I released them both in a few seconds.  The rest of the massage went well.  She had a well-toned body, no stiffness, excellent ROM, the fascia moved freely.  No clock in the tiny room (nothing at all but the table, and the dog, and the client, and me), so I had to pace myself by instinct.  She actually snored for a few minutes during the massage.

But the next day she took me aside for a meeting: her, me, and an LMT, a therapeutic massage specialist who had been with the spa for three years.  Owner says that I had proved myself to be highly skilled in therapeutic massage, but i worked "a little fast", and my pressure was a bit too hard for her clientele, who came to her for relaxation massage.  So, she left the room.  The other therapist first gave me a quick upper back massage, showing me how their clients like it-- a skin rub, it hardly moved my tissues at all.  Then I massaged her upper back.  She spent about ten minutes on me; I spent more than 20 minutes on her.  When we began she was rather energetic, smiling and moving briskly.  She fell asleep on my table, and when I brought her out of it she was sleepy-eyed and groggy-moving for the reaming two hours of the day.  She said that I had just given her the best massage she had had in over a year.  But then added, "Michelle was right, you did work a little too fast."    Twenty+ minutes on back alone, during which she slept, and I worked too fast???   Sigh, a heartfelt sigh.  Evidently she had to butter the boss' bread by agreeing with her.  So, okay, I accepted this pronouncement without offering rebuttal. 

At this point I had been sitting eight hours per day on a hard metal chair in the staff break room which contained a refrigerator, a sink, a table and three chairs.  Fourth day, I was finally added to the appointments board-- but no assigned clients.  This was a Friday.  I had been assured that there would be plenty of walk-in clients, and I would get my share.  Six total appointments were on the board that morning when I arrived, and by two o'clock the board was filled with same-day appointments and walk-in appointments.  Color-coded yellow, meaning the client had not expressed a preference...that they would accept the next therapist in line.  At four o'clock, the LMT I had swapped back massages with on the second day came into the break room to get her snack out of the refrigerator.  Before leaving she asked if the owner, Michelle had talked with me again, adding that Michelle wanted me to do a 4-handed massage with her, so that she could teach me "how we do it here."

Four days I had occupied that hard metal chair, not earning a nickel.  I had watched clients without appointments (walk-ins) get assigned to one of three LMTs-- with me and one other newly-hired LMT sitting in the breakroom, doing a slow burn, clients were made to wait 15-20 minutes until one of those favored three finished a session.  The other newbie and I both said to hell with it and left.  

This day spa paid their LMTs only 45% commission out of a $75 fee.  Get this: its LMTs had to provide their own linens and lotions and stone warmers and take everything away with them at the end of the day.

Although, like my friend Gordon, I like the challenge of ending clients' pain, I give a damned good relaxation massage, as a dozen or testimonial letters posted on my website attest.  Note that I said that I provide massage, not skin rubs.  Hell, their 12-year-old children can give them a skin rub and all it'll cost them is a bonus on their weekly allowance.  I am a highly skilled, professional massage therapist.  I tailor my massages to the individual's needs and preference, and no one has ever complained that I "work too fast" or apply too much pressure.

Sigh, a heartfelt sigh.  The things we are forced to do when we become desperate for money. This coming week I'll visit chiropractors and PT clinics and maybe a few hair salons.  I don't think I will waste another four days waiting to be assigned a client in a day spa.

But, am I judging all such spas by my bad experience?  Gordon works at one, and is happy there, and earning a fairly decent living--and Gordon sure as hell provides more than skin rubs!

So, tell me, fellow LMTs.  Have your experiences working for and receiving massage from spas been more like my unhappy experience, or more like Gordon's...is their emphasis on therapeutic or on providing relaxing skin rubs?