I’ve recently been offered a contract to work at my local pool. The only thing is, the pay is 14.69 + 25% per hour for a 16 year old casual, whereas my friends (few months older than me) get paid 29 + 25% per hour on the other side of town.
Is this normal to have pay differences like these despite being in the same state?
Hi all,
I'm currently studying in Australia (citizen, 19yrs old) and planning to get certified for pool lifeguarding during my mid-year break as a side casual job. I wanted to go this route cause i swam competitively for years and thought to use that skill somewhere.
The thing is, the total cost of being certified is about $300 and was thinking it would suck to not get a job after spending a pretty hefty amount. Do I need to cold email my local pools and councils for a job, or do pools usually hire by the season? Sorry just thinking of the worst case scenario, and apologise if this seems like a ridiculous post 💔
I start next Monday and i realized i don’t own a single pair of sandals (because I actually hate them) but is it appropriate to just wear tennis shoes or what do I do? 😭 do I go to the dollar store and get some 5 dollar flip flops or can I stick to my converse
Hey everyone! I'm about to start lifeguarding for the very first time this weekend.
I need advice. I'm scared of not being good enough or being the reason someone doesn't survive a drowning. I wouldn't considered myself unprepared—my fear comes from the worry that I'll freeze up and forget what I need to do when things go wrong and someone is counting on me to save them.
To those that have experienced this first hand, what is your advice for me, and perhaps others that are looking for the same thing? How do we work on this and convince ourselves that we can do this? I know that as a lifeguard we need to be confident in our abilities, so this will only hold me back.
I’m recerting my NL in about 2 weeks (BC + Yukon branch of LSS), i was wondering if anyone had any advice for doing the brick? I struggled quite a bit the first time, and while my egg beater has improved a lot, I went to the pool last week and found that I could only do about 3-3.5 m carry. I’m pretty sure i’ve got all the other skills down, but i’m just not sure how I can improve for this?
My first shift is on saturday what should I do beforehand to prepare?
Hi RLSS UK Trainer Assessors,
Please could somebody walk me through what to do to prepare for the course and what to expect during the course? Will it involve getting in the water?
Furthermore, about the job of a TA itself, once you qualify the course I understand the 2 year probation period. However, I wanted to ask are you allowed to deliver staff training (CPD) sessions as a probationary TA but you can’t carry out assessments or is it that you can’t do anything until you pass probation. Furthermore, how can the probation be passed? Does it have to be running an NPLQ? Apologies for the plethora of questions.
For the girls how do you keep you hair healthy bc the chlorine in the water damages mine so much any tips with be very much appreciated
Hey everyone! I’m a lifeguard at a pool and recently got my emt certification. I’m in tennessee and am wondering if anyone knows about specific scope of practice for lifeguards?? Our pool doesn’t hire EMTS and I was thinking about how my certification plays into my job as a lifeguard. For example, can lifeguards do long bone immobilization splints here?? things like that. my research unfortunately fell short and i don’t want to put my job or license on the line. Thank you!
I’m in the middle of my recert class right now (2 days, 6 hours each) and RC somehow made it take 3x longer. Now we have to do every save 3 times on 3 different people.
It’s brutal in a group of 8 because you have to wait for everyone to finish before moving on. I get practicing, but if someone can do the saves correctly on the biggest person in the class, they can probably do it on anyone. Also we’ve all been guards for 2+ years, it just feels pointless too when we’re all experienced.
I covered a shift at small pool and at that pool we had two lifeguards on duty at all times. The other lifeguard didn't give a shit about anything and was on his phone the whole time and I had a lazy mentality but was still looking at the water. Earlier that day some safety manager came to for a "safety readiness check" so she talked a bunch of bullshit that maybe made me a little more paranoid about my job. So I am observing the water and I had come up with this little mental strategy after being a lifeguard for over a year that when someone is under water for 10 seconds that's not a big deal they are just playing or even possibly trying to make me nervous, so only after some is under water for 30 seconds I really start paying attention to them and at 45 seconds it's quite possibly an emergency and maybe I will stand up and get ready to jump and at one minute you have to jump. So anyway I am sitting there and kind of detached but in my head I am still counting seconds for people under water and of course most people come up after about 15 seconds. So there's this one boy probably around 4 years old and his head is under water so I wasn't consciously thinking about him but I was counting the seconds, all of a sudden I jumped up as if I was dreaming filled with adrenaline because I realized that the boy had been in the same position for 45 seconds with his head under water and he was splashing his hands the whole time kind of like how you see real videos of people drowning. So in this adrenaline rush I didn't use my whistle but just let out a really loud weird scream and jumped in and pulled out the boy.
The boy looked ok and was breathing. his parents walked over right away and said that he knows how to swim and even put him back in the water while I was still in the water. I said no he can't swim and our pool also had a rule that kids under five need to have an adult within arms reach at all times. So I got out of the pool all wet my shirt and shorts soaked and the other lifeguard was still sitting there looking weird at me for jumping in, and this was a fancy hotel so a bunch of families where sitting quietly around the pool area looking at me. anyways I felt very awkward for the whole rest of the day while still being wet.
What do you think, should I have jump in? And how can I avoid feeling awkward next time even if I realize that maybe I didn't need to jump, how can I still look cool as a professional lifeguard?
If someone became a lifeguard, how long would it take them to learn to teach swimming lessons before they would really be comfortable teaching swimming lessons independently? I know it will vary from from person to person, but what have you seen in your experience?
I'm supposed to be a supervisor this year. It's early in the season all we've been doing is orientation and getting the pool ready, but I really need to request some days off THIS week. And I know it's unprofessional, but what can I do?
Also haven't seen him in person for a week cause we're waiting on my background check.
I never thought it mattered cause like, you don't have to answer your texts if you don't want to, like I never cared when people would text me at 2-3am.
But I gotta remember these are grown men and not just kids my age 😭
i'm naturally dense and find it hard to float (my legs sink like bricks so i have to keep them constantly moving) which means that it's quite difficult to keep my body very high out of the water when treading, especially without my hands. this happens even on a full breath. i've managed to tread fine with my chin up towards the sky. did your instructor tell you that you can/cannot do this? my training is in 4 days so i just want to know beforehand whether that's allowed or not.
hihi! first-time lifeguard here and I’m trying to figure out what gear/items are actually worth buying before my first season along with what to buy.
I’ll be guarding at a pool this summer and my employer hasn't necessarily provided a list of things I should purchase. Aside from a lifeguarding bathing suit, pack, and whistle I'm lost on what else I should get and where I should buy these items.
Any advice is very much appreciated :)
Hello fellow guards after a 14 or so years this old guard is ready to hang it up and walk away in honor this time rather than being fired I suffered a lot with mental health and being a alcoholic for a long time trying to guard not really being both mind and body ready for the shift I would call off alot be to hung over to work or just feel mentally drained I had a lot of mental health problems that I let go because I didn't wanna ask for help but this time I'm going out with soberity good mental health it's like I know it's time I end this journey on a good note rather feeling like I had something more to prove. I know now I have achieved my mission as a lifeguard more than any saves more than any you know endless hours of scanning your pool or water and moving your head up and down and probably thousands of micro particles of whistles in my system I just decided that my journeys come to an end and I'm ready to move on to a New journey in life so I know this is totally random but I just want to express this is kind of like a kid that thought this was going to be a job it turned into almost his entire life of his adult life of lifeguarding you know and I'm ready to hang it up and just move on to this next adventure so yeah like I would I would advise any new lifeguard it's okay to make mistakes just making mistakes when they don't matter and always ask for help because nobody got to this point in their career as a lifeguard without asking for helping always admit to yourself that if you have a problem you need to talk to supervisors and whoever else because you know this is a very mentally draining job and if I could do it all over again I would with no regrets so this whole lifeguards hanging it up
Okay I have this big fear that someone’s gonna be unconscious and I’m gonna not be able to locate a pulse accurately and take forever or do CPR on a live person. I can find mine but like I haven’t practiced on other people a lot. And it’s kinda like how do I practice taking a pulse on people any tips to get better at that?
hi hello. this is my one bazillionth time asking a question on here. what do you guys do when you’re on your period while on stand? i have a really heavy flow and horrible cramps. my first shift is in a couple of weeks (currently training rn) and it will be when im on my period. any tips? any tricks?
thanks in advance!
I am guessing probably not since they're a distraction or look unprofessional, but they could be classed equivalently with a radio or speaker since it effectively just 'adds to the background noise' of the pool. Thoughts?
hey! I’ve been working as a lifeguard for over 5 years but this summer it is my first year outside. I want to get a good pair of shoes that will last but I have a few conditions
is there a type of shoe that fits this criteria or an I just way too picky?