Saturday, February 1, 2014

Lifeguarding


                                                                Lifeguard Rule #1: Have "mad flow" and wear douchey shades.

So for those who don't know; I work as a lifeguard and swim instructor. Most of the first responses I get are "wow that's a really fun high school job" and "that sounds so nice, you just get to relax all the time huh?". There are many secrets about being a lifeguard that no one warns you about when taking the classes to become a certified lifeguard.

The first secret I will talk about is how parents that bring their kids swimming feel that all of their responsibility is passed on to the lifeguard watching the pool their spawn is peeing in. Now don't misunderstand me, they aren't wrong in assuming you should watch their kid and save the child if they start struggling because that is exactly what we are there for. The issue is that they will allow their kid to do literally anything the brat feels like doing, as long as they don't have to worry about it... this means the lifeguard is not just there to prevent drowning but also to deal with any conflicts over toys, games, random crying in general, and we get the honor of telling the kid every way that they CAN'T jump into the water. Parents are far too absorbed into their phone, and I used to think they did something important when I first got hired but after many peeks most the time they are just playing a game like angry birds or something. I recently saw a parent getting angry over flappy bird and just letting all of their frustration out on their offspring... but I felt that horrible child deserved it. When the parents do decide to partake in the swimming it never goes well, I have seen a parent encourage their child to try a front flip into the shallow end of a pool then after I interfered and told them it was against the rules they had a foot race on the deck of the pool. In short, a lifeguard is actually just a glorified babysitter who gets to deal with the arrogant fathers who try to be the "fun" parent. 

Another part about being a lifeguard is all the chores that require no actual lifeguard experience whatsoever. Ideally a lifeguard at my work is supposed to spend twenty minutes of each hour doing chores around the deck of the pool. These tasks consist of cleaning windows, cleaning swim gear (buoys, kick boards, floaty belt things for water aerobics...), scrubbing the stairs in each pool, scrubbing the grates around the pool, spraying the tiled floor with a high pressure hose, picking up trash, walking through the locker rooms, measuring chemicals in the pools, organizing the swim gear, and a few other various things. Those are all the "daily" chores, or the ones that are required to be completed every day. However, we also are given duties that are relevant to events the facility will be hosting, this month we started putting all the kids who take swim lessons and writing their names on fish then stapling them to a board. The lifeguards on duty were told to go through all of the papers and individually cut out each fish with a pair of scissors, had there only been a handful of papers it would've been alright but their were about twenty of each fish for six different levels. So just remember if you ever become a lifeguard, you can expect to become extremely efficient at washing windows. Squeegee and all. 

Children poop. A lot. For all the time I have been employed at my work I have been at the pool for 9 (I think) code browns, I was the lifeguard on duty for 2. That count does not include the kids throwing up or making some other disgusting mess, I have also witnessed that though. When I was in my lifeguard class I figured that I would encounter some gross things in the pool, but nothing could've prepared me for using a net to pick a nice brown dookie up out of a swimming pool. The worst part about this sort of event is that we close the pool for about an hour and use a vacuum in the pool, then put a bunch of new water in it. Then we allow people to immediately swim again. That is so horribly gross, I try to keep the swimming in the kiddy pool to a minimum simply because I know about its history with human excrement. 

Possibly the worst part about being a lifeguard is that the members, patrons, or whatever of the pool will blame the lifeguard for anything that they dislike about the facility. The people who come swim for recreational purposes or to do water aerobics (or claim to "work out" and really just lug around like a manatee) will come in every day and make some super clever, creative, and totally original joke about the facility forgetting to pay its electric bill, or to go downstairs and turn up the dial... I die inside a little more every time I hear one of those damn jokes. They just think the pool is too cold. Alternatively, the lap swimmers always come and get angry at us for the pool being too warm for a "distance" (200...erm... 4 laps... 8 lengths of the pool) set. There is absolutely nothing the lifeguards can do about the temperature of the pool, at my facility all that business is left to maintenance. My very first shift was after the annual refill of the pool I work at so the pool is about 3 degrees colder than normal (even after being heated for 2 days because heating up a body of water that large takes forever) and a woman was complaining about it being cold. I began to apologize and try to reason with an unrelenting effort but to no avail.. she threw the water aerobics bar bell things at me and stormed out of the building. 


Alrighty.. thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any requests!

-UsedtobeSadeeiq

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