Some people, have asked, regarding this post, “What kind of pool is open from 8am to 2am? Who needs to swim at 2am?”
I’ll explain, but first I’ll give you some background.
Lifeguarding is one of the easiest jobs in the world if you have a well managed pool, and an intelligent staff. For years, the pool I worked at had that. It was great.
You have to work to make your job easy, and I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. For example, you have to clean the bathrooms every day (usually a 20 minute job) unless you want to spend a week cleaning the bathrooms at the end of the summer. You have to hose off the decks every day, unless you want to get on your hands and knees and scrub them at the end of the summer. Preventive work is not fun, but it beats actually doing physical labor.
As you can guess, we spent most of out time in the chair. Sometimes we’d sit 15 minutes a chair in 4 chairs, sometimes 20 minutes a chair in 3 chairs, sometimes 30 minutes in 2, sometimes 20 minutes in 2, so we’d USUALLY be up for an hour, then down for an hour. When we were done, we’d clean up trash around the pool, clean bathrooms, the deck, mow the grass, pick up the parking lot, check chemical levels, work the front desk, etc.
The people who worked at the front desk usually read, and re-read the latest issue of Cosmo. It was a completely crap magazine, but it made for something to do when no one was coming in.
The nice days, though, were the days that it rained, and we would keep the pool open anyway. We’d play Trivial Pursuit, Risk, the Planet Hollywood game, or whatever. Occasionally a few kids would show up on rainy days, and we’d be able to sit 1s for 30 minutes a piece. Up for 30, down for 2 hours. Rainy days were nice.
But, I think the thing that no one realizes is that we have to be constantly vigilant when we’re in the chair. You become almost zen like, swinging your whistle, scanning the water, paying attention to nothing but what is going on in the pool. That’s how we prevented most of the accidents that could have happened.
Sometimes we got lazy, and thought that parents that were in the pool with their kids, may also be responsible for their well being. Not true. To those parents I say, “I’m not your babysitter. You can’t just turn your back on the 5 year old struggling to tread water behind you.”
We had to go in and get that poor kid because his mom couldn’t be bothered to keep her eyes on the child that was directly behind her. It was the only potential drowning we had in the 4 years that I worked there. I was covering the deep end when I saw my buddy go in to the 3 foot section to rescue the kid. I cleared the pool, and made sure no one else got in. As my biddy pulled the kid out of the pool, and started doing rescue breathing, another coworker called 911. The whole incident was over in 5 minutes, but the kid could have suffered permanent brain damage, or died, had we not been around. So, you’re welcome, mom who never said, “Thanks,” to any of us.
Shortly after that, the governing board of the pool changed, and all of a sudden new regulations were coming down from the board. Primarily, they wanted more parties for themselves, and the other adult members.
That was fine with us, we got paid overtime for every hour we clocked over 40, and parties sometimes meant an extra 10-12 hours a month. So when I was scheduled for a “Teen Night,” I wasn’t too upset. It meant I would have to stay until about 1am. The party would end at 12, and we’d clean til 1. The party went long, and parents weren’t there to pick up their kids until 1, so we stayed until 2 to clean.
I had unfortunately forgotten that I was also scheduled to prep the pool for a swim meet the next morning. That meant I had to be at work at 8. You don’t want your lifeguards on 5 hours of sleep, but it wasn’t a big deal. Once I had prepped the pool, they let me cook the burgers to sell to the swimmers and families. I set the grill up on the edge of the Baby Pool, so I could stand in the water, in front of the grill, with an umbrella over me. Grilling wasn’t in my job description, but it was one of the myriad random tasks we were assigned.
I was supposed to clock out at 5 that day, but since so many parents show up to the pool for swim meets, who never come to the pool otherwise, they all saw the sign up sheet for the “Adult Night” that night. The attendance tripled, and now they would need all the guards to stay to make sure we had enough coverage. We weren’t supposed to sleep on the job, but my manager took pity on me, and let me catch 15 minutes of sleep here and there through out the early evening. Once the party started at 8, all bets were off.
Adult Nights were the worst. You’d have these drunken idiots at the top of the hill, nobody in the pool. It was okay because if no one was in the pool, we wouldn’t have to sit in the chairs. But then they’d all come stumbling down the hill, and jump into the pool, beer in hand. We have to run to fill the chairs, and then some people would be able to get down once we had a better idea of how many people we’re in the pool. There was even one guy who set up a few beers at either end of the pool and would swim laps between them, taking a drink at both ends. If you want to know how bad an idea this is, set up some beers. Drink some beer, then hold your breath and do jumping jacks. Drink again, repeat.
So we stayed again until 2, cleaning up after all those drunken idiots, but not before we got some interesting news from the board.
We had worked so much overtime in the beginning of the summer (because of their stupid parties) that we wouldn’t get raises this year. We were essentially paying for their fun.
When I got home that night, I wrote “Overworked, and Underpaid” on my lifeguarding shirt. The next day at work, another 8am shift, I walked into the pool with my shirt on. I got a few laughs from some of the pool members for most of the morning. They had know idea how hard we worked. Some of my coworkers were feeling similarly, so they wrote on their shirts too. Our manager told us we couldn’t wear our shirts. I told him I’d take it off, but I never did. I believe I was told, “It’s funny on one shirt, but it’s a revolt on more than one. Take it off.” That night, after 2 very long days, and just before I went over my then-girlfriend’s house, the board called an emergency meeting with us. They told us that they didn’t have the money to give us raises, and that it was our fault that we had so much overtime. They told us that if we thought the little stunt we pulled was going to get sympathy from someone, we were sorely mistaken. So I quit.
(It was at this point that I went to Megan’s house. Tired, dismayed, tired, jobless, and tired. I wanted to sleep, she didn’t want me to. So I slept and dealt with her yelling at me for the car ride over to her friend’s house. Then she ignored me for the rest of the night. Fine by me.)
There were eight of us. We worked for between 6 and 7 dollars an hour, depending on experience. Most of the rest quit after that summer, kamikaze style, and the board decided to go with a pool management company, instead of hiring independent lifeguards. Now starting lifeguards get paid 7.50 an hour, and the company requires that there be 10 employees at the pool. So they could have given us all 25 cents more per hour, but they decide to screw themselves over instead. The last I heard, they had to raise the membership rate by 100 dollars per family just to cover the cost of the new lifeguards.
So the next time you wonder how much work lifeguards do, and whether they’re getting paid too much, remember that we get paid to save your ass, but we also have to watch your kids, and clean up after you too. And we all do it because we like to do it, but it only takes one of you dickheads to screw the whole situation up.
