My name's Chris. I work as a pool lifeguard at Beatty Park Aquatic Centre.
I've been lifeguarding now for about a year and a half and
it's just a great place to work and a great job to have.
The hours are completely flexible and it pays a little bit better than other jobs as well.
Every day you come to work and you sit outside and you soak up
the sun and then you get paid to do it, so, you know, it's good.
When you step on to the pool deck you have to be prepared
to be switched on a hundred per cent of the time.
A lifeguard shouldn't be watching the same body of water for more than half an hour.
It just keeps you on your toes and you know you're looking at something different
and you're confronted with a different situation which keeps the mind ticking over.
The acronym that we're taught nowadays in our training is PAPER.
So that's P for prevention, A for administration, another P there
for public relations, E for education and lastly R for rescue.
We'd rather spot something before it happens and make something safe and that, you
know, makes our job a lot easier and it makes it a lot safer for the public as well.
For my uni study, I'm studying classical music at WAAPA.
I'm training to be an opera singer.
I'm there, you know, 9-5, 9-6 most days and just singing away and
doing productions and learning about everything music related.
Other people in the opera course get a little
bit surprised when I say I work as a lifeguard
and I'll come into uni Monday morning raving about the
football on the weekend and everyone will look at me
going, 'Ah, did you see that opera special on SBS on
Saturday night?' I'll be like, 'No, I saw the footy.'
So, you know, it's a little bit different for a teenage male to be
studying opera in the first place, let alone a lifeguard studying opera.
In here you're dealing with all people from all
walks of life - younger than you, older than you.
Normally a lot of pools will prefer to employ you when you're 18.
You've got to display a bit of maturity and a bit of life
experience and good communication skills especially.
I was wondering how I was going to get out. Yeah.
Thank you. Too easy. Have a good day.
Hey, guys. Mum's not here.
Your mummy's not here? No.
Where's your mummy? Dad's there. Aw, your dad's here.
You guys need to hop out of this area of the pool, all right?
We just had a young child have a bit of an accident in the pool.
Basically our role is to jump in and get it out as soon as
we possibly can, clearing everyone else out of the area.
All part of the job!
It's what we call a scatter bomb in the industry.
It's probably a once-a-fortnight sort of job, especially
if you work on weekends, Saturday morning - prime time.
Because of the size of the accident, we've had to introduce some more
chemicals into the pool just to keep it safe and kill off all the bacteria.
So this pool's going to be closed now for the next 20 minutes or so while the
chemicals work their way into the system and make it safe for everyone to use.
How many laps have you done so far?
700. 700? No, not laps, 700 metres.
All right. I was going to say, 700 laps, mate. You would have been here since 5.30 am.
Are you in every day at the moment?
I try and come three times a week, three or four times, yeah.
What's the temperature like in today?
Beautiful. Yeah, for me. I like it warm. It's nice. It's great. Good on you. Take it easy, mate.
Yeah, you too, mate. Have a good one.
We actually have the power to evict patrons from the facility and exclude them
and say that they can't come back if they are breaking the
laws and, particularly if they are causing harm to others.
You have to be diplomatic and you have to put your point across calmly and firmly.
When people backchat and say, 'No, you can't kick me out.'
'Well, we can, so watch out.
Hey, Geoff. Are you online? Yeah, receiving. Go ahead.
Yeah. Are you happy for the kids to use the contaminated area again?
Yeah. Roger that. Good to go. Out.
You guys can in that other bit over there in five minutes or so if you want.
Basically as a pool lifeguard you do four days of training which is your bronze
medallion and your pool lifeguard training which is a little bit more specialised.
And then you do your senior first aid certificate as well on
top of that so all up, it's about six days basic training.
And it looks fantastic on the résumé. People like the
police force have it in their brochures when you apply.
They say that they strongly recommend that you have
your pool lifeguard and your bronze medallion.
A lot of things - firefighters, all those emergency
services and it's just the sort of thing
that really sets you in, you know, a good place
for the rest of your life. Sorry. That'll do.