Evening Strumpets,
Grace has passed her latest swimming grade on her first attempt! We`re so proud of her, and we were told that tonight would be a "play" night for the kids, as it was their last session, and they had all tried really hard. For the past twelve weeks myself and several other parents have sat by the side of the "learners" pool, where there are seats, and you can get a view of how your kid is doing. The other seating area, beside the "big" pool is around a corner and as a result it is not possible to see how they are getting on.
This has been fine, despite the kids having problems at times, not one parent has done anything to divert them from the swimming instructors. We have sat there for eleven weeks. Eleven. No diversion whilst lessons going on, in fact more chatting between Mam`s and Dad`s about more important things, like the snow, and Christmas, and, bizarrely but lovely too, getting dressed up as vampires for Gothic weekend at Whitby! One of the Parents is a Vicar for Pete`s sake (or whatever you want to call Him).
So we all arrived this evening, and sat whilst awaiting the instructor. I noticed two different faces there, a couple of older people with a little girl who Grace had befriended. In my most typical Northern English way, I raised my eyebrows and smiled whilst mouthing "alright?"to them, to which I got the token Northern reply of eyebrows counter raised with a smile to accompany.
It was at this point that the evening went sour. We were sat there as the session was about to start when a bloke in his mid forties, shaved head (not that`s a bad thing, just setting the scene) Local Council inscribed black T-shirt tucked into his Local Council inscribed black Shell suit bottoms (as pointed out in last paragraph, just trying to let you get a picture of him) came over. Half smiling he said "Sorry Mams and Dad`s, I`m going to have to ask you to leave this area, youre not allowed to sit here whilst sessions are on" See the important words there. "I`m going to have to ask you" as in "It`s not me, it`s just the rules" as in " we were only obeying orders" Yeah I know how extreme that sounds, but I`m still smarting, and hopefully as I go on you`ll see why, so bare with me.
When I said that we had been sitting there for the past eleven weeks, he gave a similar smile and just said "Don`t know how that`s been allowed to happen, mate" (I never crudely swear on this blog, it`s a rule I gave myself, because as daft as it sounds I like the idea that my kids and Grandkids etc can check out how the old man was, but I`m really close at the moment. "mate" "MATE!!!!!!!!", and yes I know I`m a bugger for open/close Brackets, whatchyagonnadoo) "but it`s not allowed, you`ll have to move to the designated areas" he could have gone on "where you can`t see your kids", but he didn`t.
Now it`s here where I really got upset. because the aforementioned older people were the little girls Grandparents, who the little girl had specifically asked to take her for her last session so she could show them how good she was. Her older Sister is possibly swimming for the County, and she wanted them to see how well she is doing. She`s six. They told Mr Jobsworth this, can you guess what he said? it`s even worse than that, he said nothing and just smiled that "I wish there was something I could do" smile and pointed to the designated seats.
I`d love to tell you that i stood up to him and said "let them stay, it`s only fair". I`d love to say I had a word with him afterwords voicing my disgust in his appalling interpersonal skills. But the reason I didn`t is because what I would really love to tell you is that I picked him up by his pathetic uniform and frogmarched him to the deep end and threw him into it.
But I`m a person who understands (professionally and personally) how the human body and mind works. I know what chemicals were swirling around my body at that time, just as I know that feeling the way I did would have resulted in me saying something which would have resulted in Grace probably being barred from the Swimming lessons, and getting a black mark against her name for any other Pools. And that Bastard knows that,(More brackets, i`ve allowed myself that one) and his Power trip would have been complete.
We stood on the other side of the pool so we could still watch the kids. remarkably Jobsworth didn`t say a word, but I think that`s because he could feel the rage within the group. He wouldn`t even look over at us as he sat where we weren`t allowed to.
Apparently the reason we aren`t allowed to sit there is because in the past Parents have disrupted lessons by having a go at the instructor or shouting for their kids to try harder. Of course I knew this already, I`m not an idiot, but we`d been allowed to sit there for eleven weeks, without an incident, despite a couple of times which we wish we could have.
If you`re reading this and you are a Jobsworth, go away, I don`t want you here, this isn`t the place where people like you can play. If by a remarkable twist of fate, you`re reading this and you`re the jobsworth I`ve been discussing, tough, I hope you are! I`ve done enough risk assessments in my time, I know I`ve covered myself with enough anonymity (including your appearance and my kids swimming level)to prevent any comeback on yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself.
And now I can relax. Thanks for putting up with this rant, but as a result of my profession, I know that I needed to let it out, otherwise, well, that way darkness lies.
As an example of what real humans are capable of. Enjoy!
and now I feel much better.
till the next one learn something new.
Mark
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