Your Excuse Holds No Water

(I work at a city pool as the head lifeguard. We do not allow flotation devices such as life jackets, foam noodles, puddle jumpers (they go around the upper arms and the chest), etc. A family comes to the pool with puddle jumpers, and are told at the gate that we do not allow flotation devices in our pool. About an hour later, a family comes and has a child in a swimsuit that has built-in floaties in the front and back. We have no control over that so they are allowed. A few minutes later, I see a young girl with puddle jumpers on in line for the diving board. Her dad is with her.)

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but flotation devices are not allowed in the pool.”

Dad: “She just wants to dive off the diving board and she’ll take them off.”

Me: “Sir, you were told at the gate that we do not allow any flotation devices in the pool. If she cannot swim to the pool on her own or without her floaties, then she should not go off the diving board.”

Dad: “This is ridiculous! This is a stupid rule!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but not all parents are as careful with their children as you are. In the past, we’ve had too many children left unattended in the pool with a lifejacket on and no parent. Many parents expect the lifeguards to be babysitters while they read a book or play on their smartphones and leave their children in the pool. Even though they are wearing a lifejacket, those are not made for swimming but for floating. Some young children can actually get stuck face down in a pool while wearing a life jacket.”

(The dad pulls the little girl out of the line and she proceeds to throw a fit, crying and demanding to go off the diving board. I continue to roam the pool deck. I see this dad talking to a lifeguard up in the chair, then goes to the front gate and talks with the guard working the cash register. I go to the front gate to excuse the guard to rotate to his next station and ask the dad if I can help him with something.)

Dad: “You are a bunch of hypocrites! There is a girl in the shallow end of the pool with her mom and she has a lifejacket on! What are you going to do about that?”

Me: “Sir, this girl is wearing a bathing suit with the flotation pads built in. Do you want me to go over to the mom, tell her that the bathing suit is a flotation device and make her remove it and have her child swim naked?”

Dad: *grumbles something and walks away when I ask an approaching family how I can help them*

(The two other guards told me later that he said the same thing to them, and they both gave him the same answer about making that poor girl swim naked! He called me “Shrek” and told one of the other guards I was being a b****. He has come back two other times and caused trouble by acting childishly and deliberately breaking rules along with his wife. He is now known as the “Shrek” guy.)