jewel of the pool (mildly disgusting)

[thehippie777]

Our hotel has a pool. It is a great selling point for our hotel, but our pool is open 24-7. This leads to absolutely no downtime in case there is a santitation or maintenance issue. So...

If for some reason the pool is shut down, guests get irate...even if they would have never used the pool in the first place. I have seen people demand a discount for not being able to enter the pool right away, tell me they would be back in an hour when it's open again, but never show. It happens quite often.

Our pool has signs all over, clear as day. There is no lifeguard on duty...etc etc Parents are required to accompany their children under the age of 13, but do they? No. So, they kinda run amok. The pool area gets destroyed. Like any business, we dont just have a person available 24hours a day just to sit around take care of things like van runs and pool maintenance. The Front Desk gets to do IT ALL. So, sometimes...they just can't babysit guests &/or their spawn.

Out of the 6 years I have worked here, the pool has been randomly shut down a couple times because some child has vomitted in the pool. There is no way in hell we are letting people in there...for what I would assume are obvious reasons. Try telling people that the pool had to be shut down out of the blue for an emergency....yeah right... It's amazes me how many people freak out. And we are told to tell people how sorry we are, but not the actual reason other then for "maitenance". That theme NEVER worked for me, people seemed to think we did things just to piss them off. Cuz, I adore having guests angry & so angry they never come back...my dream! No please don't give us your money! So dumb...I have been accused of doing things on purpose and it just simply shocks me.

So, I started telling people exactly why the pool was closed. Most of the time the actual reason made people a little more understanding. Some of the time it was all the hotel's fault someone puked in the pool. I dispise this, just like I dispise the fact I have to tell grown adults to quiet down past midnight & if they don't choose to listen...all the guests being disturbed take it out on the hotel (I want my money back!). Most of the time people choose not to complain until the next day, even though the issue could have been fixed right away.

Of course, it doesn't simply take 10 minutes to clean out such a mess in a pool. Usually it takes all night or at least at couple hours. The entire night happens when other guests, not the perp, discover the vomit before hotel staff gets a chance to find it first (meaning it has time to disperse). It is sooo embarassing.

On the topic of these people who get very angry about the pool needing to be closed for this reason...well I wonder how they would deal with the situation if somone vomitted in their personal pool? Would they be happy to swim anyway? How long would the cleanup take them? Doubtful it would take less then 24 hours... So, what do they expect from this?

[freaktard]

I used to enjoy going to this particular swimming pool, until one day I was floating on my back in the water, and I happened to look to my left and saw a giant turd floating lazily next to my head.

I never thought it was the pool owner's fault, but I could never bring myself to go to that pool again.

[Imogene]

Most of the time people choose not to complain until the next day, even though the issue could have been fixed right away.

I can kinda see that... if it's the middle of the night, say, and they're trying to sleep? If the noise isn't loud enough to wake them up fully, they may be too groggy to actually coherently make a complaint?

[Tireana Dorcha]

Oh, I feel your pain. I worked as a lifeguard for five years. So many angry people

One of my favorite incidents: I came in to open the pool one bright weekend day and lo and behold the pool was green and cloudy. Greeeeat. For whatever reason our pumps decided to stop pumping chlorine. So I logically close down the pool. I mean, I can't even see the bottom of the 3ft. section!

Here comes my least favorite lap swimmer. I've just dumped 5 gallons of chlorine into the pool (it's still green and cloudy mind you) and he wants me to let him swim.

SuckySwimmer: Why can't I swim?
Me: Because I can't see the bottom of the pool.
SS: Well I won't be swimming at the bottom!
Me: No, I can't let you, sorry. We should be open no problem tomorrow.

[amphrite]

Yay! Another Lifeguard!

But people can get really tetchy when they cannot get into the pool THIS INSTANT. Sometimes when we are doing school board lessons during the day, or saturday morining lessons, people get mad that they cannot swim lengths. They have been know to steal instructors lanes if they get out with the class to get PFD's or go to the Dive tank for 10 min. Otherwise they sit on the pool deck and glare at you and the kids because you are in their way.

At my pool, the Deep water workout people are so nice though. They get there early, but know thay cannot go in, and sit and watch the kids while thay wait. Because, really, Kids can be damn funny during lessons sometimes.

[Bright_Star]

A pool has to be maintained or it'll soon become a great green glob of muck. SOMEBODY has to do that job-it doesn't happen by magic.

[wagegoth]

We'll let the kids swim at the gym my in-laws belong to, but we normally won't let them swim at public pools anymore.

A few years ago, we spent a week in San Diego. My husband and the kids were in the pool daily. They were all sick with flu-like symptoms within days. The kids were throwing up on the trip home (by car). So gross. Apparently, it's pretty common to pick up viruses and bacterial infections and such from even fairly clean, chlorinated public pools. After that, no more public pools.

Think about the people who think it's okay to piss in a pool, who let their kids in pools with diapers on, and who swim with who knows what infectious disease. No thank you.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I used to enjoy going to this particular swimming pool, until one day I was floating on my back in the water, and I happened to look to my left and saw a giant turd floating lazily next to my head.

Spaulding! NO!

dah dum dah dum Dah Dum DAH DUM DAH DUM....DOODIE!

[karath]

We'll let the kids swim at the gym my in-laws belong to, but we normally won't let them swim at public pools anymore.

A few years ago, we spent a week in San Diego. My husband and the kids were in the pool daily. They were all sick with flu-like symptoms within days. The kids were throwing up on the trip home (by car). So gross. Apparently, it's pretty common to pick up viruses and bacterial infections and such from even fairly clean, chlorinated public pools. After that, no more public pools.

Think about the people who think it's okay to piss in a pool, who let their kids in pools with diapers on, and who swim with who knows what infectious disease. No thank you.

Wow, that could explain a family situation I had a while back. The fam was visiting my grandparents in norcal, so we were staying at a hotel that had a pool. We'd used it before, had no problems...but this particular time it felt hotter than usual, and everyone who swam wound up getting sick afterwards. I don't recall the exact symptoms (it was a few years ago and was not something I wanted to remember) but that infectious thing makes a lot more sense than the theories we came up with while half-delusional

[RetailWorkhorse]

We'll let the kids swim at the gym my in-laws belong to, but we normally won't let them swim at public pools anymore.

A few years ago, we spent a week in San Diego. My husband and the kids were in the pool daily. They were all sick with flu-like symptoms within days. The kids were throwing up on the trip home (by car). So gross. Apparently, it's pretty common to pick up viruses and bacterial infections and such from even fairly clean, chlorinated public pools. After that, no more public pools.

Think about the people who think it's okay to piss in a pool, who let their kids in pools with diapers on, and who swim with who knows what infectious disease. No thank you.

I used to live in a campground that had a pool, and during the summertime EVERYONE would be in that little dinky pool. The water was hot and it smelled funny and who knows HOW many people got sick when they finally returned home. Chlorine doesn't really do well in hot water and it's very likely the pool was the perfect place for some nasty stuff to breed.

[Evil Queen]

I used to live in a campground that had a pool, and during the summertime EVERYONE would be in that little dinky pool. The water was hot and it smelled funny and who knows HOW many people got sick when they finally returned home. Chlorine doesn't really do well in hot water and it's very likely the pool was the perfect place for some nasty stuff to breed.

I remember that. There were days when that guy who took care of the pool (jim?) would tell us not to go swimming. That's why Mom and Dad would occasionally take us to the lake instead.

We've had the pools at my hotels/motels shut down for various reasons too. In NC, once, we shut it down because no one had been in it for two weeks. Of course there are the occasions were we would shut the pool down for a storm and I'd have to go chasing kids out of the stupid pool in the middle of it because I don't wanna get my fanny sued for not watching their monsters get electrocuted in the pool. You have no idea how many PARENTS I've kicked outta pools for being in it during a rain storm or jumping in cannonball style (not safe in small pools).

[Andara Bledin]

The thing about heated pools is that you need a ton of chlorine in them for the chlorine to be effective against the heat, which algae likes.

And, when a pool has a ton of chlorine in it, it can cause reactions.

I had a friend with a heated pool, and she had a party with a ton of people over. The day after the party, I got really sick and developed a rash along the upper edge of my shoulders where the chlorinated water kept washing over and drying, so I think it left a layer of chlorine on the skin.

So, if you go swimming in a heated pool, you really want to take the opportunity to shower off afterwards.

^-.-^

[RetailWorkhorse]

I remember that. There were days when that guy who took care of the pool (jim?) would tell us not to go swimming. That's why Mom and Dad would occasionally take us to the lake instead.

Jim and his loverly....co-worker? Wife? Girlfriend? .....Kim!

[ShinyGreenApple]

Things like this are exactly why I refuse to swim in public pools. And my family doesn't understand why. -_-

[thehippie777]

Yeah stories like this are the reasons we HAVE to shut down the pool sometimes. When people bitch, I sometimes want to encourage them to swim in them & get violently ill afterwards...just to teach them a lesson that I COULD be the actual bad guy in the situation.