It’s that time of year again. Get your one-piece bathing suits and fanny packs ready. Lifeguarding is the typical summer job for young adults looking to earn a little money, while still being able to enjoy the beauties of summer weather. Though it may look like a dream on the outside — sitting by a pool, tanning, enjoying time with friends — lifeguarding definitely has its crappy moments (literally, see #8). It’s about time someone exposes all of the miseries of being a lifeguard so that others can understand and appreciate all the work that they do to keep their pools safe. Here are some of the struggles that those fearless lifeguards face every day at the pool.
1. Parents that think you double as a lifeguard AND a babysitter.
As if being responsible for their safety and lives weren’t enough… For some reason, parents believe that just because you are watching their children in the water means that they don’t have to.
2. Praying for thunder.
Blowing that air horn will be the most exciting and exhilarating thing that happens to you as a lifeguard. Not only do you get to hear its loud, powerful roar, but you also get to kick everyone out for at least 30 minutes.
3. When it’s overcast/raining and there’s like…two people that show up.
It’s like they do it on purpose just to torture you. There is no reason you have to float in a pool when its 50 degrees out and pouring rain. Go lay in bed like the rest of us.
4. When people complain about the pool deck being too hot.
See that big yellow bright light in the sky? Yeah, that’s the sun and I have no control over it whatsoever. Go soak your feet in the pool cause, ya know, that’s what it’s there for.
5. When people complain about being splashed.
6. Hoping that a kid is a good swimmer when you’re about to give them a swim test.
Please don’t drown. Also, don’t make me fail you when your parent is hovering two feet behind me.
7. The crazy parent that thinks their child is the next Michael Phelps.
It’s sad how some parents would rather risk their child’s safety, just for them to receive a rubber wristband that allows them to go in the “deep end.” Obviously, it’s frustrating when your kid keeps failing a swim test, but parents need to be more understanding of lifeguards because they’re just looking out for everyone’s safety.
8. Having to clean poop out of the baby pool.
It’s just never a pretty sight. Dumping buckets full of chlorine into a small, crap-infested pool is seriously a “rock bottom” moment in life.
9. Dehydration.
You don’t realize how much the heat affects you until you’re on break and drink 5 bottles of water. Then that, of course, makes you have to pee the whole next time you’re on stand.
10. People who stay in the pool until the very last second of closing.
Please go home because 9 p.m. really isn’t an ideal time for the pool anyways.
11. MEMORIAL DAY & 4TH OF JULY.
Overwhelming and exhausting, these two holidays are basically every lifeguard’s nightmare. Being in charge of fifty people crammed into a small area in a pool should just not be a thing.
12. Forgetting sunglasses.
Just accept the fact that you will be blind by the end of the day. You also have those face wrinkles to look forward to later on in life because of that permanent lifeguard squint.
13. When you tell someone to walk but they continue to run/fast walk.
I KNOW YOU HEARD ME.
14. The annoying kids that are ALWAYS at the pool.
Pool rats. The children you love to hate. By the end of the summer, you will probably feel like their legal guardian.
15. The permanent smell of sweat, chlorine, and sunscreen.
It could be worse though, right? Wrong. It’s terrible. People should not be able to tell that you are a lifeguard simply by your scent. It’s weird.
16. HORRIBLE tan/burn lines.
