They Need More Lifeguards… For The Out-Of-Water Hazards

When I was fourteen or fifteen, I worked in the snack shack at my local swim club. This was my first real job, so I didn’t have a lot of experience, but I learned quickly. The snack shack was run by a separate company from the pool, so technically, they were my employers. But I will tell you, it sucked.

This place, had anyone actually checked on it, would have broken so many health codes that they wouldn’t have even been able to fit them all on one paper. The entire floor under our grill and fryers was a massive grease pit, and the entire summer, I was scared it would catch on fire and explode.

One time, I swore I saw a mouse disappearing into the bread drawer. Halfway through the summer, there was a fly and maggot infestation. When food went bad, we usually scraped off the ick and still served the good parts!

Toward the end of the year, the company basically gave up on us and stopped sending restock items. This meant that, on Labor Day, by far the pool’s busiest weekend of the year, we were out of fries, onion rings, bread in general, hamburger buns, waters, sodas, candy, and tuna.

And, to top to all off, they took an extra three weeks after the snack shack closed for the year to get us our pay, and they likely wouldn’t have paid us at all if I hadn’t put up a fuss.

This story is part of our Labor Day roundup!

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