INSUBORDINATION

I walked with a slight air of nervousness, even though I had been there for what seemed like every day of the past month or so.

I knew that I couldn’t afford to be nervous, not with this job. I made myself stand a little taller and told myself that I got this. I watched the white concrete walls rush past me in a blur, heard the faint incessant hum of fluorescent lights and smelled the slight distant smell of chlorinated water. 

I unsheathed my employee card with a flourish. The small picture of me stared back with a slight smile against an off-white backdrop. I adjusted the shoulder strap of my backpack and held my card against the reader. A small light on the black box turned green and I heard a click emanate from the door. A familiar blast of humid air rushed into me when I opened it and I saw some of my coworkers already in the office. Polly Hoffmann, one of my supervisors, sat behind the dingy desk, typing at the computer. Another instructor was looking through their binder for their lesson plan. 

No one said hello to me. I was too new for that level of familiarity just yet.

I rushed past them all and out the door leading to the deck. I heard the sounds I had come to know so well in the past few weeks: the blast of echoing chatter, screaming children, hoarse instructors, splashing waves, the occasional whistle from the synchronized swimmers. I saw other instructors in the water, clutching their yellow guard tubes across their chests as we had all been trained. With each of them was a group of children, ranging in ages from barely walking to arguing with their parents. My kids would come soon, all thirty or so of them with their camp counselors and loud unlistening attitudes. 

I opened the door to the staff-only change room and entered the tiny closet. No one else was there, thankfully. The change room was small enough that with even just two other people, it could get claustrophobic. I opened the plastic lockers one by one to see if any were empty. One of them was, and I quickly claimed it for myself. 

I shrugged off my jacket and pulled off my shirt. I changed into my bathing suit, thinking how just last year, this bathing suit was with me when I was training to get here. This bathing suit had been at the bottom of the dive tank, with me as I pulled up the practice dummies from their watery tomb. This bathing suit had swam countless meters across the very lane pool I would be teaching in later tonight. Now, it was with me as I worked the job I had been training for the past one-third of my life. 

I slipped into my plastic slides, which had had a similar experience as my bathing suit… and I pulled out the one garment that was relatively new. 

I pulled the red pinnie over my head. The word OTTAWA was pasted across the front in that familiar font I had come to recognize over the years. On the back was what identified me to the general public, the title I had been hoping to achieve since I was eleven years old. LIFEGUARD, it proclaimed. 

I carried my bag back to the pool office. The door shut against the incessant noise of the pool. Outside, I noticed my other supervisor, Ryan, leading another lifeguard in what seemed to be a new staff orientation around the pool deck. The huge digital clock across the deck told me I had about forty minutes before my class started. Forty minutes to prepare and be ready to respond to whistle blasts.

Ryan and the other guard came into the office at some point. He showed her around, where the binders were, where the evaluation sheets were, where the break room was. Eventually he and Polly left and I was left alone with the new guard. 

I gathered my confidence, recently discovered again through my hiring at this pool, and asked her name.

“Abby,” she told me. “Pronouns she/her. What’s your name?”

I told her. We chatted a little bit about what shifts we worked. I could tell she felt very comfortable with her new job, more comfortable than I had felt when I had my first orientation about a month ago. 

Eventually our conversation died down and we lapsed into the semi-awkward silence of lifeguards who are not actively guarding, but who are still prepared to run to whoever blows their whistle next. I pulled out my phone a few times, but I mostly peered through the windows of the pool office, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone to blow a whistle. 

At 5:28 pm, something happened. 

The sharp, crisp whistle stabbed through whatever thoughts I may have been thinking. Other guards in the water immediately pointed towards the one who had blown it. I followed their fingers to the training pool, where several lessons were in progress. The guard who had blown it, Ethan, was staring directly at me. I saw him make the dreaded hand signal. He lay one forearm atop the other, hands pointing in opposite directions. With his lower hand, he made a fist, opened it again. Made a fist, opened it again. That signal could only mean one thing: pool fouling. 

Abby and I looked at each other. We grinned uneasily. “Well, that’s not great,” she said.

More whistles were blown. Three sharp blasts overpowered the constant chatter. Everyone was led out of the pools and into the changerooms. All the instructors, shivering, wet with their pinnies painted on their torsos, rushed towards the pool office where Ryan and Polly were to await further instruction. 

All lessons were canceled. The guards helped to clean off all the toys and noodles that were in or near the training pool. I followed their instructions to the letter, because I had never experienced a pool fouling before. There was no way I would have been able to take charge if I were in Ryan’s or Polly’s shoes. I went home that night dry and feeling sorry for the kids whose swimming had been canceled. 

That was Thursday. The next evening, I had the monthly in service training for February. I was about to get into the water when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Ryan, telling me to go aside to where some of the other Thursday guards were standing. We were pulled into the far corner with our supervisors as well as Kim, who is the program coordinator. A nervous tumor swelled in my stomach. What was happening? I felt like a kid going to the principal’s office.

Kim told us that she was disappointed with how the guards had handled the pool fouling situation the day before. People had not followed directions properly, she said. The word ‘insubordination’ was used. She told us that we had not worked as a team properly and that out of the eleven people who worked on Thursdays, only three had done their duties correctly.

(insubordination)

That word bounced around my mind like a ping-pong ball. I had gone my whole life without hearing that word

(insubordination)

and I had wished so dearly that I would never, ever have to hear it spoken to me. I felt my nervousness grow into a numb sense of shame. I thought that I had done everything perfectly, but apparently I had committed 

(insubordination)

some terrible offense. 

My mind turned to thoughts of being fired.

Eventually she stopped and asked if we had any questions. We all shook our heads silently. She told us to go back to the rest of the guards who were currently doing a warm up activity in the water. 

I turned away, feeling guilty and confused. I started to head back to the group of guards in the water when I felt a tap on my shoulder. 

It was Polly. She was smiling.

“You did great,” she told me. “I hope you don’t feel called out, because you followed what we said very well.”

“You were one of the three,” Kim said, smiling despite the tone she had put on just moments before. “What you did showed good leadership skills and good teamwork.”

I smiled in relief, feeling the stone roll off my shoulders and my limbs regaining feeling. I had nothing to worry about after all.