Chronicles of a Lifeguard: Chapter One - Mornings

Log start: 7:11pm August 11th, 2010

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Ugh... 7am... I hate mornings.

The one thing about being a lifeguard is that the job is very physically demanding. For a guy that's used to waking up at noon for classes that start at 2pm, 7am is a very big difference. That means it's time to say bye bye to a lot of the usual late night activities such as playing video games past midnight, staying up watching TV sitcoms, dramas and movies, surfing the web, and my favorite college past-time, anything that invovles alcohol.
It's not that I don't like the job, because I love it. I love swimming and I love to teach swimming, i've been swimming since I was six and now i'm currently twenty-one years old. The most annoying part about the job is that the whole staff composes of college students, and the normal college student is definately not a morning person, especially if you live somewhere as far as Brooklyn and have to wake up at 6am, maybe even 5:30am to come to work in the Queens to avoid morning traffic. To me, that's just insane, I already think sleeping before 3am is blasphemy but to wake up that early every single day, I don't think I could of done it.
Luckily for me, I live about a 10 minute local drive away from the pool, so I get the luxury of waking up as late as possible and getting to work dead on time. If there are no school buses or old people in my way in that stretch of road, I can even make it in seven minutes, but what awaits you when work starts is part of why the job is terrifying and why you dread waking up so early every morning to drag half-dead body to work.
What awaits us at work are little devils that have an unlimited supply of energy if you water and feed them from time to time. Yes, they're children, cute little children that can either make your day amazing or a living nightmare, more of the living nightmare nowadays because of the sugar loaded breakfasts that they get fed everyday. There are so many little buggers running around and breaking rules that it doesn't matter how many cute little children you have, because it won't balance out the bad ones that you have to teach everyday.
Still, you can only hope that tommorow will bring a better day and maybe some of them won't even show up to get on your nerves. Honestly, those are the best days for me because I noticed that I spend the majority of my energy yelling and the bad seeds only to turn my head around for one second and they're at the same thing again. The days where my most annoying children don't show up are the days that when I get home, i still have the energy to stay awake until dinner time.
Of course, the children are the most predictable factor of your day, because after a few days, you know which child sits where on your piss-me-off-and-die scale. The most unpredictable part of your day rests with your own co-workers, the other staff that runs the pool with you. The mood of your day is ultimately the average of the whole pool staffs. If someone comes in with a hangover, you have to pick up their slack, if they come in all happy and giddy, you'll hear amazing stories all day long and everyone will have a great time, despite the annoying children. The team functions as a unit, every one of us works with each other at least once a day, we share joy, pain, and memories together, so the co-worker mood factor definately plays a large role in your daily overall mood.
You'll never know that'll happen at work. Someday you might get some poop in the pool and your boss won't even close the pool, someday there will be no chlorine and yet the pool still isn't shut down, and sometimes you'll get pushed into the pool as a prank by your friends and you'll be waiting for that perfect time to get a revenge shove into the pool. Everyday is a different story for the staff at the pool.
Mornings are a drag, waking up so early when you're not 100% used to it is a pain in the ass. Knowing that there are crazy and annoying children waiting for you at work doesn't make your mornings any better. The best that you can hope for is that your co-workers and friends will make your day better, or else you'd crack under the pressure of this physically demanding job.
The rest of the day will come shortly, now I eat my breakfast, hop into my car, and listen to the morning radio talk show while I cruise down to the pool where my 8 weeks of pain and sometimes excitement waits for me every single day.

Fun stuff.



HakoneDayDreamer, sleeeepy.

Chronicles of a Lifeguard: Sub-Chapter One - Panic Is Not An Option

Log start: 11:25pm August 2nd, 2010

There's bulletin board at our pool with a poster named "Panic is not an option." On the same bulletin board are posters explaining some popular water sports such as scuba diving, surfing, and recreational beach things. There are posters that give you annual statistics on the risks of water related accidents compared to on-land activities. One of these statistics compare the risk of being killed by a shark to being killed by slipping in your own kitchen. The risks of getting killed by a shark is 1:14,000,000 and the risk of death by slipping in your own kitchen is 1:15,000 falls. On the poster next to it, there are statistics that say that you are less likely to die via a pool drowning than someone randomly stabbing you on the street.
In most life threatening situations, the key to survival is to always stay calm. You should never panic because you're in a deep shit hole because then you'll never get out of it. It's hard to keep that in mind if something life threatening is actually happening to you, but you must always tell yourself to relax, or things will get worse. Remember, things can always be worse, but it should never be.
During recreational swim on saturday, my co-worker and I had a lady call out for help. This was the first time in five years that i've worked saturday recreational swim that someone had actually called out for help. This lady was in her early 60s, she was a fairly large eastern European lady who didn't know how to swim very well and floated out too far to the deep end. This lady, when she was calling out for help, was hanging on the lane line and was panicking because she couldn't get her feet on to the floor. Lets analyze this situation from two perspectives, starting with the old lady and then the lifeguards.
Old Lady - Oh God, shit shit shit shit shit, i'm going to die. "HELP! help, someone. SOMEBODY HELP ME" I fucking hate the swimming pool, I don't want to die "HELP, HELP."
Lifeguard(Basically my point of view) - Fuck me... i'm not in my swimming trunks because no one ever calls out for help and now I might have to go in because they're too stupid to follow rules? Ugh... sorry, my un-named co-worker, I promise you that if you get this one, i'll get the next one. :D

Now, the overall situation, as analyzed by the lifeguard:
I don't expect everyone to know about swimming as much as the lifeguards do, people start off slow and there are obstacles along the way. But wouldn't it be common sense that you don't swim too far out if you can't swim? And i understand that old people fucking LOVE to do water aerobics, but please, why would you even do aerobics in the water in which you can't even stand? I don't get it. Further more, look around you, the lane line which you are holding on is attached to the wall, you're about 5 feet away from the wall, it really doesn't take a genius to go "so... if i pull myself... i'll eventually get to safety!"
This is the exact reason why panicking is not an option when you're in danger, you lose all common sense and you can't add one and one together. Something so simple as to, "oh wait, i'm hanging on this lane line, i'm floating, not drowning. So let me just pull myself to the wall" will escape your mind when you're not thinking logically.
To me, that's as illogical as having a flat tire, changing your own flat tire, and then pulling out a knife and slashing your own tire.
There were some minor flaws on my end too, like not being in trunks and trying to reason with a person in distress, but that will come later on.
Focus is the fine line between saving yourself and putting yourself in trouble; if you're not concentrating on what's happening, then you're going to crumble and lose it. It's a hard thing to grasp, staying calm will be the last thing that I do if i find myself in a huge mess, but it is imperative that you do remember that there is an option to not panic. No matter how afraid you are in a situation, you must never panic because then you're done for.

Panic is not an option for anything. You lose your mind and it's game over.


HakoneDayDreamer, TIRED FROM WORK. Blah.