How to Make Your Lifeguard Like You

All_Is_Mal offers an etiquette guide for next year, while simultaneously torturing us with memories of summer days past.—Sparkitors

There’s been a lot of hype on SparkLife about waiters—how you should treat them, how much you should tip them—and while I’m as nice to Sam as the next person, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of other jobs that involve working with obnoxious customers. If you’re a lifeguard, for instance, you have to deal with bad behavior without even having tips to look forward to.

For the sake of this article, let's call our lifeguard Riley. Riley’s job is demanding. Riley is out in the heat for hours on end. Riley has to watch gleeful patrons splashing around in delightful cool water while he sweats buckets—and stays constantly on edge, knowing he's responsible for the lives of everyone in the water below. This makes Riley just a little bit stressed at all times, which makes dealing with pool patrons just that much more difficult. Here’s how, against all odds, you can get Riley to like you:

1. Don’t run. Seems simple, right? Riley yells “Walk!” so much each day that he has grown to hate that word with the burning passion of a thousand power-crazed politicians. You’re on wet concrete—you really could slip, fall, and slice something open. And then Riley would have to bandage you up while wearing protective gloves and shoving bloodstained paper towels into a bio-bag. It’s not a good time. So, walk!

2. Don’t hit on Riley. People think that because Riley works in a bathing suit, it is acceptable to make comments about Riley’s body. Not only is that not the case, but Riley can't talk to you anyway—he must keep tabs on the water at all times.

3. Don’t splash Riley—unless he asks you to. He might work at a pool, but that's still just insulting. Occasionally, however, Riley will ask you to splash his legs while he's on stand. In this case, please help Riley out. He's seriously jealous of the glorious water you're splashing in.

4. Don’t pretend that you can’t hear Riley. When he blows his whistle to tell you to get off of a lane line, he knows that you can hear it. And don’t get mad at him just because he's enforcing the rules. He didn't write them, but even if he agrees that they are stupid, he still has to enforce every one.

5. Don’t float on your belly or lie at the bottom of the pool. That’s what people look like when they’re drowning. Speaking of which, don’t pretend to drown! Especially don’t pretend to drown just as a ruse to get Riley to give you mouth-to-mouth. The Sandlot dream is dead anyway: Riley uses one of these to protect him when performing CPR.

What's the worst swimming pool faux pas?

Related post: Why Saying "I Like Swimming" Is an Understatement

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