Steam

**LONG POST AHEAD! FEEL FREE TO SIT THIS ONE OUT!**

I know that I just wrote a post a few days ago about being stressed out, but now I am just on the brink of exploding. Even though at this moment I am relaxing on the couch, I am having to control my breathing so that I don't start bursting out into tears. No, I'm not sad...I'm so extremely frustrated writing this won't even due it justice. I feel though, that maybe writing all of this down will give me a chance to calm down AND hopefully, one day I'll look back on this post and laugh about it.

I want to tell you a story about when I was in high school. During my summers I spent each and every day at our country club pool working as a life guard and coaching the swim team. In fact, I started as an assistant swim coach when I was only 14, which, looking back on it now that was SO YOUNG! So I worked at the pool for I think what was three summers. I worked for a woman who had "managed" the pool for MANY years - a much older woman - who was most known for being a "champion" swimmer in her "older" age (I don't know for sure, but I think she was in her late 60's). If I remember correctly, she also survived breast cancer. People around the country club really respected her and were impressed by her swimming accomplishments.

S. liked me at the beginning. I was an accomplished swimmer in the city, and although I wasn't one of the original "year-round swimmers" that seemed to hold a lot of her attention and admiration, she appreciated my natural ability to swim breaststroke (without any real training) and, since we were members of the country club, was obviously nice to me. Of course this all changed...

As a way to make money on the side, I offered to teach swim lessons to very young children. The manager of the pool, who we'll refer to as "S." was the only other person who had ever given swim lessons at our pool, but because I was a lifeguard (and remember, only 15 years old at this point), she allowed me to do them too. I loved little kids and it was really just fun for me! I really think this is where the problem started - you see, S. certainly knew her stuff about teaching people to swim, but she was quite harsh in her application of the instructions and most of the little kids were scared of her. I would come to open the pool at 6am for early lap swim and there she'd be in the middle of a lesson, kid screaming at the top of their lungs. She had a tough way of teaching - she'd kind of just throw the kids into things before they were really ready - this is probably what scared them the most.

Not that my way was better, but little kids weren't scared of me. I was comforting to them and let them take their time getting used to the water, learning the strokes, and reassuring them that I was going to be there holding onto them or watching them the entire time. I never pushed them to the point where they would be scared of me or to the point where they would question their safety. Turns out a lot of the parents who originally had scheduled lessons with S., changed mid-way to my morning lessons for a less "scary" approach to swimming. At least that's what some of the parents told me. Strike one.

I think strike two came a little later into the summer, possibly even the next summer. Unfortunately for me, strike two was really something I couldn't avoid - strike two was the fact that I was a girl. Yes, you read that right. All actions and statements led me to believe that because I was a girl, I was being singled out as being "irresponsible" and "distracted." I was the ONLY "woman" working at the pool OTHER than S. So it was S., me, and five other male lifeguards. It sounds silly now to write this all out, but it really got to the point where I felt like S. started to get jealous over the fact that I got a lot of attention from my co-workers. I mean, come on, S. was SO MUCH older than me, but it simply can't be explained any other way. If something didn't get done, even if it wasn't on my list of tasks for the day, somehow the blame came back to the fact that I was "distracted" by the boys. And, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I wasn't a teenage girl who appreciated a little attention - but I do know that I always had my work done and always completed my tasks the best that I could - that's the way I have always been at work.

Strike three came in the form of a problem that a member had. One member who did absolutely ADORE S. made a complaint to me during her child's pool birthday party regarding the fact that one of the diving boards was "closed" that afternoon. Well, it turns out that the day of her child's birthday party was one of the hottest days recorded that summer and while S. was away on vacation, she gave the "acting manager" instructions for each of the lifeguards to take breaks IN THE POOL HOUSE every 45 minutes so that we were out of the sun, and so that we lessened the risk of having a problem of being excessively "over-heated". By pool rules, if there were not enough guards to watch the "diving board" area AND the shallow end of the pool, then we were required to close the diving board that was hidden by the corner of the deep end and leave the far diving board, the one that the lifeguard in the shallow end could monitor. I followed protocol and confirmed everything with the "acting" manager, but when the member stormed into the pool house raving about the closed diving board, I explained to her the situation and that was that.

A week later while I took my ONE vacation for the summer (a total of one week) I received a phone call from the often-times acting manager (when S. was out), one of my friends, asking me why my name wasn't on the schedule anymore. Of course I had no clue why this would be, but quickly learned through a LETTER that my position had been terminated. S. had fired me. I was devastated, confused, angry, embarrassed. It was terrible. I simply could not understand what I could have done differently. Turns out, the member complained to S. about me, and friendships certainly run deep over there because it meant the end of my "lifeguarding career". Even when I write it out now I STILL cannot believe that happened to me.

If you're wondering, the answer is no, I haven't been fired from my job. In fact, this isn't about my job at all, instead this story just reminded me of some of the problems I am currently having interacting with a certain person lately. I'll say it again, it has nothing to do with my job, but instead interactions with a certain someone. I'm writing this to remind myself that sometimes you can do everything right and follow the rules and still end up feeling like the loser.

You all have read this blog enough to know that I'm not a complainer and I am a very positive person. But sometimes, people just get you down, and it's just incredibly hard to shake the feeling.