Summer time- A beautiful period in any child or adults life, fun filled with warm weather, ice cream, and swimming at the pool. But what if time at a pool was complete with your favorite lifeguard letting you slide down the slide head first, run around the pool without getting in trouble, or even playing dibble. Summer time for a lifeguard on the other hand is full of stress, dirty trash and annoying kids. However it is a job, that leaves you wanting to come back for the following year.
Life-guarding is overwhelmingly one of the best jobs you can ever have as a teenager. Let’s be honest you are basically being paid to tan; to sit on a chair six feet above the ground and blow a whistle. But trust this lifeguard of two years, there are many more ins and out to the job that members at a pool never see.
For example, that beautiful tan that you worked hard on all summer long comes along with ugly, intense tan lines that can and will be seen from a mile away. Or remember when you drank too many shirley temples, puked all over the bathroom floor and the next day it was all magically gone? Two of your favorite lifeguards spent an hour cleaning it up after the pool closed.
But even with the disgusting things, lifeguards still find a way to have fun whenever they can. Off stand the atmosphere in the life-guarding community is very inclusive and welcoming. With all the free time you get with your team, together you learn to make fun of everything that is wrong with the job. By rocking out to music and dancing in the office, having races to see who can roll a towel the quickest (but must still be rolled correctly and nicely), and even watching The Bachelor.
With all things included nothing is better than a job that doesn’t feel like a job.
After all the trash cans are emptied, the bathrooms are cleaned, and the pool is closed. No one is more happy to go home than the lifeguards, but they are all ready and happy to come back the following morning.
