My Story: How Lifeguarding Ended Up Being One Of The Best Jobs I Ever Had
Occasionally someone will ask me, “What’s the best job you’ve ever had?” That’s an easy answer, but one that surprises some people. Maybe they’re expecting to hear either about one of my jobs in the advertising industry or working as an attorney, but instead they hear, “During college I spent four summers lifeguarding at a country club. Best job ever!” I enjoy the confused pause, but then I explain.
Prior to graduating from high school I was looking for a summer job and, after being a varsity swimmer, working as a lifeguard was an obvious choice. But I’d already done that two years earlier and I had been bored to tears. So when my prom date mentioned that her family’s country club was hiring two lifeguards I was not interested. Lucky for me she wasn’t easily put off.
She explained that the country club’s pool had a staff of seven: a dedicated pool manager, a head lifeguard who happened to be one of my swim team friends, and five other lifeguards. Plus the whole staff was on salary, had keys to everything, and received various freebies including meals and drinks from the snack shop. Perhaps best of all, they had a summer swim team. Honestly, she had me at “freebies.”
But if I thought for a moment that I was just going to waltz right into a job, I was sorely mistaken. That decision belonged to Ed, the pool manager, who was a big guy with an equally big personality. He was a young high school teacher and varsity swim coach with a lot of fans at the country club, and the whole pool area was his domain. He wasn’t shy about running things his way, and anyone who joined his staff was going to enforce his rules: no running on the deck, no jumping the fence, etc. The parents there absolutely loved it because they knew their children were going to be supervised and safe.
This pool’s environment could not have been more different from my previous experience. It was busy and fun, there was a sense of belonging, and from my first day it seemed like every club member knew my name. One day while on break I jumped into the water and wound up horsing around with some of the younger swimmers, picking them up and throwing them. Before I knew it, a line of kids had formed. When I finally climbed out of the water, exhausted, I plopped down on the bench next to Ed and said, “Whew, that’s hard work! I ought to get paid for this.” He laughed and replied, “You do.”
Speaking of the kids, there were over 100 of them on the summer swim team. Practices were held everyday, Monday through Friday, with the oldest age groups in the earliest time slots. It was a huge production that was central to the pool’s community. The swim team held such a position of prominence that the pool area didn’t open until the swim team practices ended. Parents and sunbathers weren’t even allowed inside of the fence, much to the disappointment of the uninitiated. But the membership and staff recognized that in addition to teaching an important life skill, we were also providing some built-in daycare.
I wasn’t used to being around a swim team without being involved, so pretty soon I was jumping in and swimming the workouts with the team. Before I knew it I was assigned a job during the Wednesday night swim meets “working the pits,” which meant I was our team’s Clerk of Course. The challenge was that most of our youngest swimmers didn’t come to me, I had to go find them. It was a hectic environment with kids running around the grass areas and throngs of parents milling about, but it also was an excellent way to learn all of our youngest swimmers’ names. That came in handy the following year when I became an assistant coach.
At one point Ed came up with the idea of hosting a “Swim Team Sleepover.” The idea caught fire and in no time we had plenty of parents enlisted for chaperone shifts. Of course every lifeguard was on duty that whole night, and honestly, you couldn’t have kept us away. The sleepover’s popularity became clear when, hours prior to the scheduled start time, a steady stream of parents began showing up with tents, turning the grassy parts of the pool area into one big campground. The sleepover agenda included an afternoon swim practice followed by a barbeque, two movies, and then, because the pool had an underwater lighting system, a late night swim workout. It was a big treat for the swimmers to practice after dark. Only later did we realize that the sleepover was probably even more popular with the parents. Afterwards several of them shared stories about much the fun they had while we watched their kids, and in the next breath they added, “Oh, and in case you’re wondering, you’re having a swim team sleepover every year!”
Part of the beauty of being on salary was that the guards didn’t watch the clock, and everyone pitched in as needed. There were a couple of evenings that, while riding my bike home from the gym, I passed by the country club and could see that the pool gate was chained, perhaps due to an earlier rain. But I also saw that people had jumped the fence and were using the pool. No problem. I simply rode up, unlocked the gate, and kept watch until closing time. As guards we enjoyed a lot of autonomy and trust, so most of us felt a real sense of pride and ownership.
But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t take certain liberties. We did. One of my favorites was the creation of our "Lifeguards’ Lounge." Adjacent to the pool area was a one-story building known as the Halfway House, where the golfers stopped halfway through their rounds. Our side the building housed the pool’s locker rooms, equipment closet, and lifeguards’ office, while the other side housed the snack shop. Above the lifeguard’s office was a removable ceiling panel that provided access to the low, unfinished space within the peaked roof. For years the pool staff had stored various supplies up there, but it was generally hot, dark and unappealing. So, that space didn’t get a lot of use, that is, until Andy, one of the lifeguards, found himself in a semi-homeless situation. He’d landed a prestigious internship so he was away during the week, but on the weekends he would return to us and shack up wherever he could, and he made that ceiling space his own.
One rainy weekday Andy was away at his internship, Ed wasn’t on the schedule, and several of us were hanging out, waiting to see if the weather would clear. That’s when our head lifeguard, Dave, decided to rearrange the supplies “upstairs” to create a little more space for Andy. That’s just the kind of mischief that appealed to the rest of us, and soon power tools appeared. We decided that, rather than just clearing some space, it would be infinitely better if we built an actual room. Our eyes fell on a nearby board that Ed had been planning to use for some other project, but we got to it first. After a couple of cuts, simple walls were created and nailed into place, and then a canvas bag was split open to create a flap-style door. From downstairs “Andy’s Room” was invisible.
But that was just the beginning. A heavy-duty extension cord provided electricity from downstairs. Insulation was installed and covered with tablecloths that may or may not have come from the main clubhouse. Another lifeguard, Amy, mentioned that her parents had just re-carpeted their living room, so within minutes we were over there picking up a bit of the old carpeting and all of the padding. Finally Dave provided the coup de grâce when he showed up with some ductwork and tapped into the Halfway House’s air conditioning. That’s when Andy’s Room became the Lifeguards’ Lounge, and it remained our secret hideaway until the majority of us had moved on to other jobs.
Those four summers at the country club pool hold a special place in my heart. Pursuing that job was one of the best decisions I ever made, but so was deciding to leave when I did. By the end of that fourth summer the winds of change were blowing, degrees were being earned and careers were being launched. The majority of the pool staff had already said they weren’t coming back, but I went into the off-season still on the fence. Gradually I realized that it was the people and not the place that had made my experience so great, and without them around it was better to close that chapter and preserve my cherished memories in tact. Many of the friends that I made back then are still my friends today, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
But if I thought for a moment that I was just going to waltz right into a job, I was sorely mistaken. That decision belonged to Ed, the pool manager, who was a big guy with an equally big personality. He was a young high school teacher and varsity swim coach with a lot of fans at the country club, and the whole pool area was his domain. He wasn’t shy about running things his way, and anyone who joined his staff was going to enforce his rules: no running on the deck, no jumping the fence, etc. The parents there absolutely loved it because they knew their children were going to be supervised and safe.
This pool’s environment could not have been more different from my previous experience. It was busy and fun, there was a sense of belonging, and from my first day it seemed like every club member knew my name. One day while on break I jumped into the water and wound up horsing around with some of the younger swimmers, picking them up and throwing them. Before I knew it, a line of kids had formed. When I finally climbed out of the water, exhausted, I plopped down on the bench next to Ed and said, “Whew, that’s hard work! I ought to get paid for this.” He laughed and replied, “You do.”
Speaking of the kids, there were over 100 of them on the summer swim team. Practices were held everyday, Monday through Friday, with the oldest age groups in the earliest time slots. It was a huge production that was central to the pool’s community. The swim team held such a position of prominence that the pool area didn’t open until the swim team practices ended. Parents and sunbathers weren’t even allowed inside of the fence, much to the disappointment of the uninitiated. But the membership and staff recognized that in addition to teaching an important life skill, we were also providing some built-in daycare.
I wasn’t used to being around a swim team without being involved, so pretty soon I was jumping in and swimming the workouts with the team. Before I knew it I was assigned a job during the Wednesday night swim meets “working the pits,” which meant I was our team’s Clerk of Course. The challenge was that most of our youngest swimmers didn’t come to me, I had to go find them. It was a hectic environment with kids running around the grass areas and throngs of parents milling about, but it also was an excellent way to learn all of our youngest swimmers’ names. That came in handy the following year when I became an assistant coach.
At one point Ed came up with the idea of hosting a “Swim Team Sleepover.” The idea caught fire and in no time we had plenty of parents enlisted for chaperone shifts. Of course every lifeguard was on duty that whole night, and honestly, you couldn’t have kept us away. The sleepover’s popularity became clear when, hours prior to the scheduled start time, a steady stream of parents began showing up with tents, turning the grassy parts of the pool area into one big campground. The sleepover agenda included an afternoon swim practice followed by a barbeque, two movies, and then, because the pool had an underwater lighting system, a late night swim workout. It was a big treat for the swimmers to practice after dark. Only later did we realize that the sleepover was probably even more popular with the parents. Afterwards several of them shared stories about much the fun they had while we watched their kids, and in the next breath they added, “Oh, and in case you’re wondering, you’re having a swim team sleepover every year!”
Part of the beauty of being on salary was that the guards didn’t watch the clock, and everyone pitched in as needed. There were a couple of evenings that, while riding my bike home from the gym, I passed by the country club and could see that the pool gate was chained, perhaps due to an earlier rain. But I also saw that people had jumped the fence and were using the pool. No problem. I simply rode up, unlocked the gate, and kept watch until closing time. As guards we enjoyed a lot of autonomy and trust, so most of us felt a real sense of pride and ownership.
But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t take certain liberties. We did. One of my favorites was the creation of our "Lifeguards’ Lounge." Adjacent to the pool area was a one-story building known as the Halfway House, where the golfers stopped halfway through their rounds. Our side the building housed the pool’s locker rooms, equipment closet, and lifeguards’ office, while the other side housed the snack shop. Above the lifeguard’s office was a removable ceiling panel that provided access to the low, unfinished space within the peaked roof. For years the pool staff had stored various supplies up there, but it was generally hot, dark and unappealing. So, that space didn’t get a lot of use, that is, until Andy, one of the lifeguards, found himself in a semi-homeless situation. He’d landed a prestigious internship so he was away during the week, but on the weekends he would return to us and shack up wherever he could, and he made that ceiling space his own.
One rainy weekday Andy was away at his internship, Ed wasn’t on the schedule, and several of us were hanging out, waiting to see if the weather would clear. That’s when our head lifeguard, Dave, decided to rearrange the supplies “upstairs” to create a little more space for Andy. That’s just the kind of mischief that appealed to the rest of us, and soon power tools appeared. We decided that, rather than just clearing some space, it would be infinitely better if we built an actual room. Our eyes fell on a nearby board that Ed had been planning to use for some other project, but we got to it first. After a couple of cuts, simple walls were created and nailed into place, and then a canvas bag was split open to create a flap-style door. From downstairs “Andy’s Room” was invisible.
But that was just the beginning. A heavy-duty extension cord provided electricity from downstairs. Insulation was installed and covered with tablecloths that may or may not have come from the main clubhouse. Another lifeguard, Amy, mentioned that her parents had just re-carpeted their living room, so within minutes we were over there picking up a bit of the old carpeting and all of the padding. Finally Dave provided the coup de grâce when he showed up with some ductwork and tapped into the Halfway House’s air conditioning. That’s when Andy’s Room became the Lifeguards’ Lounge, and it remained our secret hideaway until the majority of us had moved on to other jobs.
Those four summers at the country club pool hold a special place in my heart. Pursuing that job was one of the best decisions I ever made, but so was deciding to leave when I did. By the end of that fourth summer the winds of change were blowing, degrees were being earned and careers were being launched. The majority of the pool staff had already said they weren’t coming back, but I went into the off-season still on the fence. Gradually I realized that it was the people and not the place that had made my experience so great, and without them around it was better to close that chapter and preserve my cherished memories in tact. Many of the friends that I made back then are still my friends today, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
***
This is a guest post by Mark Meeker. Mark began swimming as a freshman in high school when his school completed construction of its first pool. With a brand new men’s swim team many of the members were similarly new to swimming, so it made for a remarkably welcoming environment. Mark went on to work as a lifeguard and swim coach, he played water polo in college, swam with several masters teams, married a college swimmer, and is now trying to adapt to open water swimming – despite a lousy sense of direction. You can connect with Mark on LinkedIn.
