Jerk With A Cause

Yesterday, at the Scera Pool, I got my first save. I had to put the little boy into a special hold called the "head chin splint" to keep him from moving his head. "I'm fine," he protested, despite having come off the diving board and landing on his chin and then flipping back into the water. I tried to calm him and explain what I was doing. He tried to move his head, repeating, "I'm fine," as if I couldn't hear him. As he thrashed, trying to escape, I desperately tried to keep him under control, and keep him from doing irreparable damage to his spine. We had just moved him onto a backboard when the supervisor, who is an EMT, released him. The kid looked at me like I was some sort of jerk, stopping his fun for something as small as possible paralysis.

This has really made me question my role as a lifeguard. I've come to realize that my job as a lifeguard calls not for a rebel without a cause, but for a "jerk with a cause." I enforce irrational rules all day, just to make people hate me. As an example of what a spoilsport jerk I am and the irrational rules, I tell people not to dive into two feet of water.

People hate it when I tell them that they can't do flips into the shallow pool. Basically, they want to be safe, but not protected. It makes no sense, but the "spirit of customer service" is alive in our staff. Basically, that means we let the old people do whatever they want. Old people get MAD when they don't get their way. I learned that when we tried to close the Rec Center Pool on time. We close five minutes early to give them five minutes to use the locker rooms (actually, it's just so they get out of the locker rooms faster, cause it takes FOREVER to get them out). Some old lady got REALLY mad at me cause she had FIVE MORE MINUTES!!! (As if she could do anything much in that time) Anyways, after talking to her, the time was up, and it was too late for her to get in anyways. I felt like a jerk with a cause.