Discounted Coaching

It wasn't so long ago that I had a conversation with one of the people in the rink office about discounts for lessons. It went something like:

T: I'm not sure if this affects you too, but you know some groups get a discount on lesson, and I have been rather confused why we are still paying full commission for them.

Me: Well, we expect commission based on the published prices. We wouldn't know about discounts the rink gives, and even so, its the rink's decision, not ours.

T: But it does not make sense that we are collecting less, yet paying the same commission to the coaches.

Me: Ok, if that's what the management decides, at least let us know beforehand so that we can decide whether to take the student. For example, the school group class was heavily discounted, but before I agreed to do it, the office had told me how much the commission was going to be.

[Note that this is not the exact transcript, but it was something like this.]

In my opinion, if the rink decides to give discount on lesson fees, it ought not impact coaches' commission. We are the ones providing the service. It would be tantamount to a car salesman giving 20% discount to the customer then turning around and telling Mercedes Benz that they would pay only 20% of the cost price because the customer got a discount!

Or at the very least, tell the coaches in advance so that we can make a decision as to whether to accept the discount or not! This cannot be done retroactively!!

We hadn't heard anything more about this... But in the latest commission statement that came out last week, all the coaches noticed that they had discounted commission!

This morning, someone suggested a solution: discounted coaching!
What is that? Well, perhaps put in 80% of energy to coach? Or perhaps give a 24-min lesson instead of a 30-min one!!

Oh boy, I don't think the skaters are going to be very happy about that!!