During Freshman year summer, I wanted a job for really only one reason: to make money. When I got a flyer in my mailbox saying that public pools around me were hiring people to become lifeguards, I jumped at the opportunity. My initial thoughts when reading the flyer were that lifeguards get paid great, and that all summer I get to be outside in the sun. However, I wasn’t prepared for what this job truly entailed.
After I had my interview with one of the managers, they said I was accepted to become a lifeguard. I was super excited to learn and gain experience from my first-ever official job. Before I was able to become a lifeguard, I had to go through a lot of training. I mean a lot. My first day of training was in April, and it was right after school. I also had to be dressed and ready to go at four o’clock on the dot. Since I got hired in Glenview, it was about a 20-minute drive to where the pool was. That one day of training went until nine o’clock at night, and it was miserable.
All through May, I was either in school or training to become a lifeguard. Since May 31 was the pool’s opening day, they made no exceptions for mistakes while training anymore. The day finally came around for the official test, which consisted of a performance test and a written test. The performance test showed our ability to do adult CPR and child CPR. They made us do two straight minutes of CPR, and anyone who has ever done CPR knows how much it burns your forearms. I luckily passed both tests and was officially a lifeguard, or at least that’s what I thought.
Training didn’t end there for us, as we still hadn’t even reached going outside into the actual pools. They made us go through multiple real-life scenarios that may happen while we work. Having to memorize every single detail about every scenario that could happen was a lot of pressure. We also began to do in-water scenarios such as active and passive drowning. We had training days like this at least five times in May, and each day was about five hours, so you can imagine how exhausted we all were.
Our final test was having to swim down a pool that was 12 feet deep in order to retrieve a mannequin. In order to be an official lifeguard, everyone had to pass this. Multiple people didn’t bring the mannequin up to the surface on the first try, including myself. This was a mental test and a stamina test. Many people can hold their breath underwater for a long time, but can they do it while having to save someone? And the answer was that many could not. The people who didn’t pass this test looked defeated after trying an endless amount of times; they couldn’t manage to pull it off.
The training never stopped, even after being certified. Every week, each lifeguard would have to attend at least one in-service training, which basically goes over all the things we learned already. If you missed one of these training sessions, you would get a write-up. If you got more than one write-up, you would be let go, which is kind of insane. There are a lot more details about these types of weekly training, but that’s just an overview.
I could name countless reasons why lifeguarding should not be your first job. There are some things I did gain out of this job and it’s that I am certified in adult and child CPR, and I pretty much know all the signs and symptoms of medical problems. Of course I gained a lot of friends while working, as I was around them almost every day of the summer. Honestly, I would recommend someone to work at an ice cream place for their first job.
