Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children

Let me paint you a scene- me, the other pool manager, and my assistant manager are sitting in our boss's office yesterday (she's out of town, it's easier to work in there). It's recreational swimming going on outside, and a parent comes in with her child in tow. This may not be word for word, but as close as I remember it. Parent: I need to speak to a manager. Other manager: Yeah, how can I help you? Parent: She's *pointing at child* been down the slide five times today and now she's been denied. Other manager: Does she come up to the bottom of the yellow tape? Parent: No, but she's been down five times already, you've already broken the rules. Other manager: I'm sorry, that was a mistake, she can't go down the slide. Parent: No, she needs to go down the slide. That lifeguard over there and the other one let her do it. Other manager: Can I explain to you... Parent: *cutting her off No, you can't f*ing explain, she's upset now when she's already been down the slide five times. *after a brief pause* And don't f*ing tell me not to use that language, it's in the f*ing dictionary. Other manager: M'am, I'm going to need you to leave the facility. Parent: You're going to get a f*ing lawsuit for negligence. Other manager: Okay, but I need you to leave now. They proceed to go back and forth on the topic of her leaving, the parent simultaneously arguing the mutually exclusive points that we should let her short child on the slide and that she's going to sue us for negligence for allowing her short child on the slide. She also says that she's going to go get the two lifeguards that did let her ride and we "have to fire them, right now." In the next breath, she says she's going to drag her child up there and put her on the slide, the same offense we're supposed to fire them for. Then at one point, the parent asks why she has to leave, and the pool manager tells her that she's becoming angry and violent, the parent turns to the child and asks her (still in her arguing voice) "am I being violent?" What's the kid supposed to say, yes, mommy, you're being mean and angry? People like that shouldn't have children. Unfortunately, that child will probably either behave just like her mother when she grows up or rebel against her parents so fervently that she messes up her own life. So then she goes and gets her husband, and they're talking to our coordinator at the front counter, where he argues negligence for letting her ride in the past, while she's simultaneously arguing we need to let her ride. Maybe we should have pit the two of them against each other and see who convinces whom the other way? Now, I do understand being upset about something like that. However, if a clearly posted safety rule is in effect, I'd approach management on more of a "you know, these two employees are obviously not doing their jobs if it's a safety regulation, please speak to them about it" kind of way. Maybe even ask for my money back if that's the reason we came, but if you go to Disneyland and you're not tall enough for Space Mountain, you don't get your money back... you go to the short people attractions. It's not like either and theme parks or at my pool you didn't know you'd not be able to go on, the height requirement is clearly posted at the front counter at the spot where you have to wait before going to the register. It's also on the back of the numbers we give you while you're in line, and in two locations at the bottom of the slide. The actual measuring tape line is in two places at the bottom and four places at the top. Some people... grrrr. Then later in the day, we had a parent come to the guard room to return a life jacket, and reminds her son "what do you say?" The kid, shorter (and hence probably younger) than the too-short-for-the-slide kid, says thank you to the lifeguards for letting him borrow the life jacket. I say we re-assign the girl from the first family to this second family. =P

The winds of forgiveness

Saw this somewhere on the internet and liked it: A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE. They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE. The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?" The other friend replied "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

Been a while

I haven't blogged in a while, mostly because life's been very busy as of late. I've been working more than I usually do, and I've been sick so I've been sleeping more than I usually do as well. We're in session 3 of our 5-session summer season. The first two went well, but then in session 3 the vacations started. Out of our 6-person management team (two managers, two assistant managers, two senior guards) five of us are in the water teaching lessons. I like teaching, but I had been trying to cut back my hours, so when I was told that I'd be teaching at night I had already cut myself back to like 25 hours. Now about 12 of those are in the water, and another 3 are pulling lane lines short to long course, which left me with 10 hours to do the rest of my work. I have to do the schedule, staff evaluations, and prepare for a swim meet, lifeguard competition, and water polo junior olympics... so the following week (the one that started yesterday) I scheduled myself back up to about 38 hours. I'm overlapping with my assistant manager quite a bit, so that I can work while she oversees everything else. So much for cutting back hours. Yesterday, my friend's mom got married in a church in Altadena. I went to the wedding, then to the El Monte Aquatic Center where I couldn't see David's desk under all the stuff he's got going (which is really un-usual for him, when I left there he was wiping his desk down with window cleaner daily!). I signed up Angel for two swimming lessons (Mommy and Me classes), which David had previously held spots for me in. David tells me that they're up to 100+ students per half hour in beginners (all of the shallow-water classes: levels 1, 2, and half of 3, for those of you who follow Red Cross), which I think is awesome. If you hire enough people, they definitely have enough space to do it. I tried it the last summer I was there, but ended up with fewer instructors than we planned for during the last few sessions. I wish I could take my boss and some of the other management staff down to El Monte on a summer evening for them to see the EMAC program. Ventura is currently doing 30 minute lessons with 10 minute break, with about 8 classes of 6 students a piece. Three in the morning and 3 in the evening makes 188. EMAC does 100-110, 6 in the morning (one is pre-school only) and 5 (one is pre-school only) in the evening, 25-minute classes with 5 minutes in between. Assuming they all filled up (all of the evening ones do, mornings sometimes do and sometimes don't), they have a potential of processing 900 students per day in beginners alone, plus intermediate, advanced, parent and child, and pre-school classes. After the pools, I went by mom's house. We chit-chatted and I caught up on some of the latest gossip. It's easy to forget that other people are out there getting older too. One of my cousins (a year or two older than me) has gotten married and is almost divorced now, another (same age as me) is dropping out of college to work so she and her boyfriend can make a house payment, another (2-3 years younger than me) just had her second child. Last time I saw them was my senior year of high school (2001) and it's weird to think of how different everyone would be now if I went back. Well, off to work soon, but I'll try to get on here more often. =)

Off season work

I applied for a retail job today. Strange, huh? But it's a highly recommended company, and I applied for a job doing what I do now (schedules, time sheets, staff training...). I'll keep you posted! I like what I do at work, I really do. However, we have a 1,000 hour cap. That means that if I work 40 hours throughout our 9 week summer season (and that's on the low end, I've been working 40s since before summer started but that's last fiscal year), that's 360. In the remaining 43 weeks, I can average 14.88 hours per week. Two issues with this- one, it's going to be a stretch for them to run the pool with each of us for 15 hours (the last off season, we were all doing 25-30, but it didn't matter then because we didn't work from July 1st through October 13th). Secondly, I'm used to checks for 25-40 hour weeks. 15 hour weeks mean I take home about $600 after taxes each month. Not sure you can call that a job even, I probably spend more than that in eating lunch out and gas money. I might not quit my current job, just come in, do my 15 hours, and go to a real job. =P Come next May, I'll see how the real job thing is working out to decide whether or not to go back to the pool "full time."