By Britt Bash ’17, Contributor
Like many other teenagers this past summer I found myself searching for a quick and more importantly easy way to make money. Being especially young for my grade I would not turn 16 until August, so there were not many options that were not babysitting or refereeing youth sports events (both of which I have done). By a stroke of luck however, I had actually completed a Red Cross Lifeguard course at my high school last winter so I am certified for the next two years. It just so happened that I got to work due to the extreme shortage of guards and therefore I was hired at 15.
When I went to sign my first major contract with the company I was going to work for, I did not really know what to expect. It was my first time making a big decision without an adult there with me. Without knowing otherwise, I agreed to get paid nearly a dollar less than minimum wage; something no other guard I worked with had to do. I was young and under the strong hands of this major company. I was afraid to speak up for what I should’ve deserved because I was uneducated on what rights I was obligated to as a minor. I thought that since I was not necessarily of “working age,” it was okay for the company to an excuse in order to pay me less than the staff. I had also agreed to purchase my own uniform and supplies out of my own money; my expenses ended up totaling over $65. Upon doing some of my own research, I discovered that on average women make 77 cents to every dollar a man earns. Obviously as I’ve stated, the company had asked if the terms were okay and I had agreed to them. Looking back on my decision I feel as though my inexperience and my excitement regarding the opportunity were taken advantage of because of my naivety.
Indeed, I was extremely excited to work at my new job. I would be working with a few people from my school that I already knew and I would get to see shirtless guys every day. Right off the bat though I noticed something odd about my pool’s staff. All of us were under 20 years old and all of the management positions were held by males. In the beginning I did not find this to be too much of a big deal, until I worked my very first closing shift.
Closing shifts always consisted of one guard and one manager. They both were scheduled from 3 to 9 and would switch each other surveillance duty every 30 minutes until 8:30 p.m. when the pool would close. The remaining 30 minutes on duty were supposed to be used for closing and cleaning. We never stayed later than 8:50 p.m.
I remember trying to impress the manager on duty all day in hopes of being scheduled more to make up for my small paycheck. I went into the guard shack ready to assemble my artillery for cleaning the bathroom, but I could not find the little brown paper bags used in the sanitary bins. My manager had come in to see what I was looking for and when I told him he had no idea what they were. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a box of them and pulled a few out to show my manager to which he replied that he had never heard of them before and that if it was not for me showing them to him, my manager would have never known.
This was the first instance when I realized that the management lacked some serious girl power and that most of the guys I worked with were completely clueless about anything that did not involving swimming laps and checking out the “hot” girls who would come to tan every day at the pool.
After a while I finally started to get to know those who I was working with. From my school there was a girl in my grade and two seniors who had just graduated. There were also a pair of brothers and a few sophomores in college. One of the college sophomores, a girl, had actually worked at the same exact pool for four years! Despite her experience and commitment she still did not hold a position of power while two college sophomore guys who had never worked at that specific pool were.
During my breaks I was almost always working on some summer assignment for my old school – I hadn’t found out about my acceptance to Country Day until about 2 weeks before school started – so everyone there knew that I cared a lot about my education. I was constantly updating them on my status of enrollment and reminding them how excited I was to be starting at my new school. So when I found out about my acceptance, I was overwhelmed by all of my scheduling problems.
On one day in particular, I had asked a girl the night before to cover my shift the next afternoon because I would be out of town visiting my aunt. She agreed that she would. The next day I texted in my work’s group chat to ensure that she was coming in. She did not reply so I assumed that she was. I had just pulled into my aunt’s driveway after an hour long car ride and she texted me back that she could not make it: 10 minutes before the shift started. I hoped that my managers be understanding, but instead they went on to tell me how “irresponsible” I was for not making sure my shift was covered. They also said that I “should tell my aunt that I have an obligation to work and that I need to be there now.” One of the manager had not been scheduled that day so he could have very well have come in for me. I was furious to the point where I was in tears, fearful that everyone at my work would hate me. I did not understand why I was the one in trouble and not the girl who said she would come in. I had no other choice but to apologize and tell them that I wasn’t coming in.
As school drew closer there were even more conflicts, including me being scheduled to work the first day of school from 12:00 p.m– 4:00 p.m. When I tried to call my managers to explain to them that I had school things I had to attend like orientations and such, they again reminded me that I had “an obligation to work.” I finally could not take it anymore. I was overwhelmed as it was with trying to transfer and I couldn’t worry about work on top of all of the stress of switching schools so I quit, or well I had my mom quit for me. She called my manager and then called my human resource manager (who also was a guy). As soon as she got off the phone with the human resource manager, my actual manager had called her back saying that I still had to come into work that day after I had just quit.
Am I saying that immature college guys who would sometimes come to work hungover from the night before make awful managers? No, I actually enjoyed working with one in particular who always was kind to me and took my side throughout all of scheduling conflicts. However I do believe that if there had been a girl in a management position there would have been a lot more maturity, empathy, and better leadership.
In a job such as life-guarding it is very easy to assume males are best fit for the position. They are thought to be stronger than girls with more endurance and more “lifesaving” capabilities. However this is not true. Teenage girls in particular need to step up and speak out for the rights that they deserve whether it be equal pay or a leadership position, otherwise we will never truly see a change in the gender inequality still present in our nation.
Image Source: http://www.creativeclam.com/LIFEGUARD-CROSS-Rescue-Heroes-T-Shirt/dp/B004PT5ZS4
