Dave Needs a Job

 

One day, when I was the summer camp director at the YWCA, there was a kid who kept acting up.  I had already spoken to his dad a couple times and the kid had improved, but he still wasn't meeting my and his parents' expectations.

 

He did something during the day and I got fed up with him so I told him that I would be speaking to his father at the end of the day.

 

At the end of the day I was in my office doing paperwork.  Will brought the kid in crying.

 

"Are you supposed to talk to his father or something?" Will asked.  "When he heard his father was here to pick him up, he just burst out crying."

 

I had forgotten.  The kid gave himself away.

 

Hehehe.

Employees kept getting in trouble in the pool at the YWCA.

 

I was watching the pool and a manager was practicing swimming.

 

We had foam "noodles" that could support probably up to 200 lbs.  I told the manager that he could sit or stand on a single noodle and it would support him, which was true.  He didn't believe me and tried to sit on the noodle but lost his grip on it.

 

He closed his eyes and flailed until he reached the wall, missing my outstretched hand.

 

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Two managers had clashing egos.  One started taking swim lessons so he could start swimming laps to impress people.  One day when he was trying to show off he got in trouble halfway to the deep end and had to be pulled out.  The other manager made fun of him for a week until he got in the water and got in trouble halfway to the deep end and had to be pulled out.

 

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On the second swim day during summer camp, I was hanging out in the deep end with Will and Gail.  A counselor named Jerry was sitting on the edge of the pool so I told him he had to get in and interact with the kids.  He jumped in and as he started to come up I saw he was panicked.

 

I grabbed his hand and he pulled  himself on the deck gasping for air.

 

"Why didn't you tell me you couldn't swim?  I would have told you to go in the shallow end," I said.  Will, Gail and I laughed and made fun of him for a week.

 

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On the last day of a journalism program I was in the group rented a bus for us.  The driver gave us a tour of the District, which was lame for me because I live here, but it was something to do.

 

The driver had it down for the most part but he got some places and facts wrong and he kept bringing up conspiracy theories, one of which was about a rocket being fired into the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11.  I don't know if he realized he was talking to a bunch of (aspiring) journalists.

 

At one point during the tour we were stopped at a light near the YWCA.  The driver saw a guy holding a woman up against a wall by her arms.  He slammed the bus into park and jumped out while rolling up his sleeves.

 

The guy didn't want any trouble and put his hands up.  As soon as he let go the woman put her hands up as if she was going to fight.  The bus driver realized she was crazy and got back in the bus.  I realized it was the same lady I had to call the police on the third time I called 911 at the YWCA.

It was 4:15 p.m. on a Saturday. I was at the front desk at the YWCA with Will.

 

A little white guy named Mike came out the locker room in swim trunks saying “a big, black guy” had threatened him in the shower.

 

Will, Adrian, the manager on duty, and I went into the shower (sigh) to figure out what was up. A big, black guy named Steve was showering. Steve said the Mike was showering too close to him despite other showerheads being open. They started arguing but we settled them down.

 

Mike and Steven showered, got dressed and came to the front desk. Mike was agitated and hostile.  All I kept hearing him say was “big, black guy.” It was a poor strategy considering between Steve, Will, Adrian and I, Mike was outnumbered 4-1 by “big, black guys.”

 

Mike asked us to call police.  The police basically told them to grow up.

 

NOTE: Mike had some other questionable incidents. He told a black lifeguard he was arguing with to not “come at him with that D.C. talk.” He once told me not to call him sir because it would be like him calling me “boy.”  However he particularly upset at the government's response to Hurricane Katrina and attributed it to racism.

 

Names have been changed to protect the innocent, ignorant and foolish.

In seven years at the YWCA I was only around for three 911 calls and one non-emergency police call. That's nothing considering the craziness on the outside and nonsense on the inside.

 

The third time I called 911 was when a mentally ill homeless woman was trying to bait a homeless guy into a fight.

 

The second time I called was when this girl had a seizure. She was feeling lightheaded and Kristi, one of the trainers, gave her some water and some cake we had lying around (yes, sugary, fatty snacks were a staple at our gym), thinking her blood sugar was low.

 

The series of events is hard to remember but the girl had a brief seizure and Kristi called 911.

 

Around that time two girls came in asking for a tour. Kristi snapped that they had to leave because we were essentially closed -- it was 4:15 p.m. The girl took offense and started arguing with Kristi.

 

 

Kristi was barely 5 feet tall, petite and fit. The girl was a few inches taller and meatier. Kristi was struggling to get the sick girl to the bathroom when the two girls kept yelling things at her.  Kristi dropped the sick girl, literally, to yell at the girls, but I barked at her to stay on task and then started yelling at the girls to leave, which they did.

 

Paramedics came. The sick girl was severely dehydrated and ended up OK.

 

 

Unstable people were a staple of the front desk at the YWCA.  The name of the game was ditch your front desk partner when the shifty ones came in or hand them off to a manager.  It was best if you could ditch a manager at the front desk.

 

One day an older woman came in with this weird wrap over her head.  It looked like she took one of those hair dryer domes and covered it with cloth.  She asked about swim lessons.

 

I turned to Will who wasn't paying attention.  Hehehe.

 

"Will right here will help you," I said as Will turned around.

 

It was a Friday and some parents were in the lobby watching their kids take swim lessons so I chatted with them.

 

I paid almost no attention to Will until nearly 20 minutes had passed.  Then I realized he was writing some things on a piece of paper for the woman, but had to keep crossing things out.]

 

When she left, will said the woman kept asking him to write down the names of her children whom she wanted to get swim lessons.  Aside from children all being over age 20, all of them had Jesus in their name.  I only remember one name, Byron Jesus, and part of another, something Madame Jesus Christ.

 

That lady would come in several more times so we started calling her Madame Jesus Christ.

When I was the summer camp director at the YWCA, we took the kids swimming twice a week.

 

On the first day of swimming -- the second day of camp -- the lifeguard went over the rules with the kids.  The lifeguard was very experienced so I had nothing to worry about with him on duty.

 

After his presentation, he grabbed a flotation device that was essentially a little foam backpack that coud support 50 or 60 pounds.  We called them floaties.  He strapped one to this little kid named John (the same one that got clobbered by the kickball) and hurled the kid up in the air and into the deep end.

 

The kid cried and frantically flailed in the water until he reached the wall and got out of the pool.  Will, one of the counselors, and I laughed.

 

The next day John's dad asked to speak with me when he dropped him off.  John's dad, also named John, was polite but wanted to get the story behind his son "being thrown into the deep end" and "almost drowning."

 

I explained what happened and that John had spent the entire time in the deep end with me, Will and the other kids that were much better swimmers than John.

 

"He didn't tell me that," John Sr. said, not in the least bit upset about what happened.  John Jr. was embarrassed.

 

I found out three years later that John Sr. is related to my cousin.

I used to open the YWCA gym at 6:30 every morning. It sucked but the extra money was good and I could get a jump on the news of the day.

 

A guy came in asking for a $10 bill in exchange for two $5 bills. I thought it was weird and that he might be trying to rob me. It wasn't my money in the register and it was barely 7 am so whatever.

 

I gave him a ten and as I was putting the fives in the register he did something weird with his hands and slapped one on the counter. 

 

"You gave me a one," he said.

 

I thought it was weird but didn't care because it wasn't my money. I took the one and gave him (another) $10.

 

He gave me $11 in total and I gave him $20. I checked the register and we were down $9. It seemed like a strange way to make $9, but he was getting the same amount of money in 60 seconds that I made in 60 minutes.

 

I wrote an e-mail to my boss and went about my business.