so in your first year of whatever you’re doing, maybe even first two years, you’re prone to some dumb ass mistakes justified by the fact, you’re new at this.
And if you don’t have rookie mistakes maybe just mistakes you made when you were younger.
I know some of us didn’t listen well to parental guidance, and I personally didn’t have a lot of it to begin with. Like, none.
A lot of things I was just figuring out how to do or handle on my own, And looking back on some stuff I realize, I really could of had better guidance and avoided some things.
Like, thoughts like, “Where were my parents in all of this” lol you know.
So yeah, some rookie mistakes that I like to look back on and laugh at. Well, some funny, some serious.
My first day of starting a job in a hair salon, they asked me to go wash some rags and towels in the laundry room.
I didn’t know how to work the washing machine, and I didn’t want to look like an idiot for asking. I had washed clothes before but not on this machine. So yeah, I flooded the laundry room long story short.
I went back in to check on it and low and behold, the entire floor was covered all the way up to the door. So I just shut it really fast and immediately like freaked out looking for stuff to dry it up through the shelves frantically (lol). And was on my hands and knees cleaning all of it up as fast as possible (I looked like a crack head while doing this).
And then. Lol. I put my hair together, dried my face off from sweating and smoothed out my clothes. Tried to look natural and *not out of breath at all* (even though I couldn’t breathe) and I just walk back out calm and collected like nothing happened.
And my boss was like, “where’s the towels?” And I said, “oh they needed a few extra minutes, mhm.” (Yeah everything’s fine, totally fine. I know what I’m doing.)
*should of just asked*
but yeah, another rookie mistake- when I was life guarding. This kid gets out of the water, and is just standing in place waling his arms about like one of those attention grabbing balloon guys you see on the side of the road that shoot up into the sky. The inflatable long arm things. Yeah I wasn’t sure what he was doing, if this was part of a game he was playing with other children, etc.
And it turns out, he was freaking out because he had gotten water down in his lungs and was choking on it, couldn’t breath and was about to pass out. He couldn’t say help, or that he couldn’t breath- because he couldn’t speak.
I was sitting from far away so all I can see is the movement. But I figure, he’s on land- he can’t be drowning.
False.
People on land apparently can be drowning or choking. And no one really briefed me that I was expected to be responsible for everyone’s safety on land too I thought I was just supposed to spot the drowning people swim out and get them out. (Which, you’d be surprised happened a lot more often than you think).
So yeah, I figured, not a priority- looked away. Another man goes running up to the kid and realizes he can’t breath and puts his hand on his chest.
I didn’t know that people could stand up while not being able to breath, and could drown- and then save themselves from drowning but still be, in need of rescue.
I just wasn’t trained to know about these kind of situations, and obviously no experience, makes it a dumb ass rookie mistake.
Luckily the child was ok- but yeah as soon as I saw the guy put his hand on his chest, the child then passed out backwards and the man was holding him limp. And I ran over then and got things sorted out. It was pretty nasty, after we got it out he sat there puking for a few minutes.
I felt really bad about the whole ordeal and made sure he received the medical attention that is protocol after these sort of things to prevent infection, and check neuro and everything. The poor kid.
Yeah, rookie mistakes. That one wasn’t funny and never will be.
I learned the hard way that if they are playing a game where they are pretending to drown, (which kids do this stupidly enough), it’s better to assume its not part of the game every single time, than to assume its a joke.
This isn’t written anywhere in our life guard training manual but it should be.
End scene. (Bows)
