Lifeguarding Rant

As most of you know, I lifeguard. And as a lifeguard I see that some people totally get the wrong idea about us. If I even think to blow my whistle at someone once, I am hated, called a jerk, and told that I am a mean ol' lifeguard that isn't letting anyone have any fun. So I decided to post this so you guys know not to make the same mistake as these clueless idiots.

First of all, the thing that you must know is that the uttermost goal of a lifeguard is to get as least chair time as possible. While on the chair, we constantly watch swimmers and to make things worse, we're not allowed to talk to anyone while on the chair, except for, of course, patrons of the pool that break a rule. As you can see, sitting on the chair is boring. I would rather be on break changing the garbage than sitting on the chair. I'm not saying that sitting on the chair is torture. I'm just saying that I would prefer other things.

Now, there are indeed some things that can eliminate chair time. If there are less people in the pool, we can lower the number of guards on chairs from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 or even from 1 to 0. Now there aren't a lot of things that we can do about the number of people swimming. But there are a couple of things. First of all, if there is lightning, the pool closes. Keeping a watchful eye on lightning is something that we do all the time. Now if someone continually breaks the rules, we are allowed to kick them out. Yes, that can be a pretty harsh thing. But if you want to break the rules, that's your fault. Kicking people out of the pool adds excitement to our day. It's fun. It lowers the number of people in the pool. We don't want to kick you out, but if you want to mess with us, you will get kicked out.

So that's just a little perspective for you. Now about whistling at people. First of all, I find it annoying that some people think that getting the whistle blown at them means that we are mad. No, that is not true. In fact, we don't even like to blow the whistles ourself. It's all about safety and eliminating any risk of an accident so that we don't have to worry about saving you or worse, send someone to the hospital. Not only that but if our manager saw somebody breaking the rules and we neglected to whistle at them, we would get in trouble.

So that ends my long rant. Just remember next time you're at a pool: don't be annoying, don't break the rules, and if you're getting sick of swimming feel free to leave. Don't make us watch you if you don't want to swim. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.