Dear Summer Job of 2016,

You were my first (job). Our relationship lasted three months, filled with insane weather and overwhelming adventures. It ended on a not-so-bitter note, but trust me, I didn't forget about it.

It’s harder to forget about you than I thought. Sure, I’ve moved on to a job that gives me a gush of excitement when I put on my uniform. Of course, you’ve moved on as well; you're always hiring new groups of teenagers each season and putting them through new obstacles and learning experiences.

We spent every weekend together with me sitting by the (pool) side, not to bask in the warmth from the sun, but to keep a watchful eye for all the patrons. (I worked as a pool attendant, not a lifeguard).

Ahh, who could forget the about patrons who truly defined the summer job experience?

The daredevils who attempted to find multiple ways to break the rules, or the ones who simply eyed the lifeguard before trying anything. Sure, there were the other kinds of patrons who wanted to have a good time and didn’t defy the pool rules. [Thank you for making my job a little easier.]

I’d never truly understood then what was so dire, so arduous, so exhausting about working weekends, until I worked them (Every Single One Of Them). During the weekdays there were the “cool calm collected” patrons who would merely bubble with excitement, but were able to recover and return to a calm state.

After a four-hour shift, you could have the rest of the day to yourself, or if you were really ambitious you could volunteer to work the rest of the hours with the 2^nd shift crew. Weekends was another matter.

Weekends was basically “family outings to the pool,” where the hotter the day was, the more people walked in until we’d hit the maximum for that day. After a six-hour shift on Saturday or Sunday, you’d just hope that you could clean the bathrooms, and the pool walk-around and that would be the end of it. Six-hour shifts became longer shifts (12pm-10pm) because of the parties.

I preferred the smaller parties where the maximum was 15, where they sometimes offered us free-food after the party was over.

Little League Baseball game parties were an interesting experience. The fact that they attempted to climb the gate to get into the pool terrified me. I want to say there were at least 50 kids. 50 screaming, screeching troublemakers, whose goal was to run to the slides as fast as possible not worrying if they were going to slip and fall on the way there. We whistled, we shouted, we gave them the snake-eye through our black fashionable shades, but that didn’t pass through the barrier of a 5-year-old kid's mind.

Besides the patrons, every time I think about the uniform I get an uncomfortable tightening feeling around my waist. I know your uniforms or any uniforms aren’t necessarily supposed to be liked, but aren’t they supposed to be at least somewhat comfortable? On the bright side, after several washes, the one-piece swimsuit kind of loosened up.

Sunscreen became my best friend that summer. I burned regardless of how much sunscreen I wore and had a 6-month flip-flop burn and a weird leg burn because I wore shorts over my one-piece swimsuit. I’ve appreciated more rainy days than 90-degree weather days by far than I have ever before.

Despite this, I’m glad we met and I don’t regret spending that time with you. You’ve taught me a valuable lesson on working with a team, even though there was more lifeguard drama (luckily, I wasn’t a lifeguard, I just worked with them) than there should have been. I’ve made some friends with the coworkers that have stuck around.

You’ve taught me how cleaning a locker room/bathroom is always better with a coworker than alone. I’ve learned time management because of you, like how to balance summer marching band course with a summer job (it wasn’t easy, that’s for sure). Lastly, I’ve experienced the satisfying feeling of getting my first pay-check.

You’ve might not have been a good-match for me, but for some who worked their consecutive summer with you: it was their ideal job.

Thank you for the memories.