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Comment by 616c | Hacker News Reader

As I guy with a young child, who ditched floaties and makes him always swim with a life jacket, thank you.

And thanks for watching other people's kids. Wage or not, that job can become real rewarding, especially once you are the humiliated and terrified parent.

I do not even let my kid walk around our community pool without it on!

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A thankless job too, I remember hating life guards growing up because they would blow their whistle at all sorts of things. They aren't trying to be jerks of course, but that was my perception when I was very young and just loved swimming. Being older I see how tough that job would be.

I lifeguarded throughout high school and college, and it always surprised me that most of the difficulties I had were with parents/adults. For the most part, kids would give a sullen look and then listen. My only memorable troubles were the occasional adults who would just flat-out ignore or contradict rules, no matter how many times you told them (I always assumed because they thought they knew better than a ~15 year old). At that point, you have a young lifeguard who has to choose between causing a minor scene (ie: whistling a manager over to "tattle" on them) or having other children see rules not being consistently enforced, which they perceive as license to do whatever they want.

I made one rescue after a little girl faceplanted from the high dive and came up crying and clearly struggling - the whole time I was helping her to the wall, I had her mom yelling at me from the pool deck that "she's fine, you're just scaring her!" I came away from that second-guessing myself - that maybe I SHOULDN'T have gone in after her, and that I should've just let it play out a little more - which is a really scary thing to second-guess.

I would imagine that the go-to for situations like this is "Ma'am, just following my training."

I (obviously) wasn't there but it sounds like you did the right thing.

At the end of the day you were the one sitting in the chair and had to make a judgement call based on your training and observations.

Think of this way - if you hadn't reacted as you did and the girl ended up injured or dead, how much worse would you feel today?

hey, look at it this way. the girl was fine. by definition, you did your job well. that's the best desired outcome of all cases, whether or not you made the wrong call.

To be fair, some life guards are really boring martinets with no sense of fun.

Other life guards dive into the deep end from the exhaust hatch in the ceiling after the pool is closed to the public.

I'm thankful for both types but I slightly favor the latter.

If you get to know the lifeguards, most of them prefer the latter. I distinctly remember taking 2 umbrellas, one in each hand, and after climbing up onto the guardshack, taking a running leap into the pool.

Needless to say I had to buy 2 umbrellas least my boss found out.

I always likes horsing around with the kids, when we developed a relationship such that they listened to the rules, which really wasn't asking a lot. Don't run, don't dunk people, get out when I ask you do (adult swim, thunder/lighting) and stay out of the deep end if you haven't passed the swim test.

There are boring guards, just like there are boring people. I have found that men and women (mostly teenagers at that point) who elect to hang out in their bathing suits (read: basically underwear) 40 hours a week are usually a lot of fun to be around. There is a specific sense of self-confidence that I never really thought about until replying to your comment.

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