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Here is the situation:
I am the Deck Supervisor during a swimming lesson block. I am not teaching; I am a liason between parents and instructors so instructors are not distracted from safety and teaching every time a parent has a question. CW is teaching a teen/adult class with two people. One is a 14 year old girl who has been to 2 out of 9 classes and so is now WAY behind the other woman.
CW(calls me aside): Hey, can you watch R practice kicking in the shallow end while I do an endurance swim with X? They are at two such different levels now and its not fair for X to suffer because R has missed so many classes, but I can't leave R by herself.
Me: Sure.
R is practicing kicking with a flutterboard going short distances back and forth. I stand on the edge of the deck, about 5 feet away from where she is. Her mother is also standing right there watching her progress, and I have a five minute convo with her about how her daughter is doing, why CW had to briefly leave with X, and I am encouraging and giving helpful tips to R the whole time.
After about 5 min, R gets a little stuck. She is quite obese, so she is a floater, and she couldn't get her legs back on the ground. I can see she is panicking, so I immediately jump in and right her. She is embarrased, but I convince her to move to the stairs, so that she can reach out with her hand and HOLD the stairs while kicking, and I will only be two feet away from her.
CW sees I had to jump in, comes back, and watches R while I go remove my soaking wet short. The bottom of my shirt is wet, but I have to leave it on. I come back with a towel wrapped around me and resume watching R and chatting with R's mom as CW leaves again. R, although holding onto the stairs, flounders again, and I realize she needs close, in the water supervision. So I jump right in, and stay with her in the water teaching and practicing with her (she is now getting a private lesson even though her mom paid for semi-private, which we are not supposed to do) until the end of the lesson. At the end her mom thanks me for "saving her" and I tell her no problem, she made a lot of progress, etc.
A few days later, CW and I are both working, when we see R and her mother come in. R's mom and this point becomes SC.
SC: I demand a refund! Last lesson R's instructor disappeared after 2 min and we never saw her again! R had to save herself from drowning TWICE!
CW and I look at each other and our jaws drop.
Boss: CW and {me} are two of my most experienced and most trusted instructors. I am sure they would never do that. Girls, what happened on Thurs?
CW: Boss, X has been coming every lesson and is working at level 2, almost 3. It would have been poor customer service to restrict the distance she could swim, so I asked {me} to watch her practice kicking while I worked with X. (this is a common thing at our pool.) {me} even jumped in and helped her one on one for quite some time.
Me: Yes, boss, R wasn't quite ready to be watched from the side so I was one-one-one with her for about half of her lesson. CW was coming back and forth and checking her progress too. Assistant Boss was here last night; she saw me come in with soaking wet shorts after jumping in, and I explained to her why my shorts were wet. You can ask her if you like.
SC(to Boss): I cannot believe that my daughter would suffer such a thing and that these two girls would lie right to my face. This is unbelievable. I had to save my daughter from drowning! (note: a minute ago, R saved herself. Also, SC uses a walker, cannot swim herself, and moves like molasses in January. The likelihood of her saving R is exactly nil, and Boss knows that.)
CW (after picking her jaw up off the floor): Boss, her shirt was wet up to here; she was definately in the water.
SC: See! They can't even get their stories straight! She(pointing to me) says her shorts got wet; she (points to coworker) says her shirt got wet! How can you believe such lies?
CW: Obviously she was wet all the way UP to here, which included her shorts.
Me: I am not going to stand here listening to someone call me a liar as she lies to my face. Boss, I will go set up the deck for the swim.
SC and R stayed for a long time, but Boss knew to believe me and CW.
Note: R stayed silent the entire time, facing away from the conversation. She does not speak in front of her mother. When they came to register for lessons, the mother was talking for almost an hour, in front of R and at least 5 staff, about how her daughter had a condition that made her so horribly fat and hairy "as you can see" and the doctors would not give her medicine, but said she could only lose weight to get better! So she needs to learn how to swim so she can swim to stop being so fat, because swimming is a good exercise for fat people like her, etc. That poor 14 year old girl! (I have the same condition, just nowhere near as bad as this poor thing. The only true way to slow down the process is to lose weight, even though the condition itself makes it easier to gain and harder to lose weight.)
I am the Deck Supervisor during a swimming lesson block. I am not teaching; I am a liason between parents and instructors so instructors are not distracted from safety and teaching every time a parent has a question. CW is teaching a teen/adult class with two people. One is a 14 year old girl who has been to 2 out of 9 classes and so is now WAY behind the other woman.
CW(calls me aside): Hey, can you watch R practice kicking in the shallow end while I do an endurance swim with X? They are at two such different levels now and its not fair for X to suffer because R has missed so many classes, but I can't leave R by herself.
Me: Sure.
R is practicing kicking with a flutterboard going short distances back and forth. I stand on the edge of the deck, about 5 feet away from where she is. Her mother is also standing right there watching her progress, and I have a five minute convo with her about how her daughter is doing, why CW had to briefly leave with X, and I am encouraging and giving helpful tips to R the whole time.
After about 5 min, R gets a little stuck. She is quite obese, so she is a floater, and she couldn't get her legs back on the ground. I can see she is panicking, so I immediately jump in and right her. She is embarrased, but I convince her to move to the stairs, so that she can reach out with her hand and HOLD the stairs while kicking, and I will only be two feet away from her.
CW sees I had to jump in, comes back, and watches R while I go remove my soaking wet short. The bottom of my shirt is wet, but I have to leave it on. I come back with a towel wrapped around me and resume watching R and chatting with R's mom as CW leaves again. R, although holding onto the stairs, flounders again, and I realize she needs close, in the water supervision. So I jump right in, and stay with her in the water teaching and practicing with her (she is now getting a private lesson even though her mom paid for semi-private, which we are not supposed to do) until the end of the lesson. At the end her mom thanks me for "saving her" and I tell her no problem, she made a lot of progress, etc.
A few days later, CW and I are both working, when we see R and her mother come in. R's mom and this point becomes SC.
SC: I demand a refund! Last lesson R's instructor disappeared after 2 min and we never saw her again! R had to save herself from drowning TWICE!
CW and I look at each other and our jaws drop.
Boss: CW and {me} are two of my most experienced and most trusted instructors. I am sure they would never do that. Girls, what happened on Thurs?
CW: Boss, X has been coming every lesson and is working at level 2, almost 3. It would have been poor customer service to restrict the distance she could swim, so I asked {me} to watch her practice kicking while I worked with X. (this is a common thing at our pool.) {me} even jumped in and helped her one on one for quite some time.
Me: Yes, boss, R wasn't quite ready to be watched from the side so I was one-one-one with her for about half of her lesson. CW was coming back and forth and checking her progress too. Assistant Boss was here last night; she saw me come in with soaking wet shorts after jumping in, and I explained to her why my shorts were wet. You can ask her if you like.
SC(to Boss): I cannot believe that my daughter would suffer such a thing and that these two girls would lie right to my face. This is unbelievable. I had to save my daughter from drowning! (note: a minute ago, R saved herself. Also, SC uses a walker, cannot swim herself, and moves like molasses in January. The likelihood of her saving R is exactly nil, and Boss knows that.)
CW (after picking her jaw up off the floor): Boss, her shirt was wet up to here; she was definately in the water.
SC: See! They can't even get their stories straight! She(pointing to me) says her shorts got wet; she (points to coworker) says her shirt got wet! How can you believe such lies?
CW: Obviously she was wet all the way UP to here, which included her shorts.
Me: I am not going to stand here listening to someone call me a liar as she lies to my face. Boss, I will go set up the deck for the swim.
SC and R stayed for a long time, but Boss knew to believe me and CW.
Note: R stayed silent the entire time, facing away from the conversation. She does not speak in front of her mother. When they came to register for lessons, the mother was talking for almost an hour, in front of R and at least 5 staff, about how her daughter had a condition that made her so horribly fat and hairy "as you can see" and the doctors would not give her medicine, but said she could only lose weight to get better! So she needs to learn how to swim so she can swim to stop being so fat, because swimming is a good exercise for fat people like her, etc. That poor 14 year old girl! (I have the same condition, just nowhere near as bad as this poor thing. The only true way to slow down the process is to lose weight, even though the condition itself makes it easier to gain and harder to lose weight.)
I hope she can get out from under Mommie Dearest's shadow and get better.
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