Why Do I Want School To Start?

Valleyfair Amusement Park & Soak City is a place for families to have a good time while employees work to stay sane.

By Eric Oslund



Lifeguards enjoying themselves during some nice weather. Photo by Rachel Lentsch



            As the largest amusement park in Minnesota and surrounding area, Valleyfair is the place where many families go to have a good time. Whether it be the gut-wrenching drop of the Power Tower, The screams of the Steel Venom, or just the sheer speed of the Renegade, people come from all over to get some of the excitement Valleyfair has to offer.

            Sadly, the employees of this place do not experience the same joys as the happy visitors. During the summer of 2011, I was one of those employees, and I can honestly say it was the first summer that I wanted to end and could not wait for school to start.

            For me, Valleyfair was a place I dreaded to go to. Now this may not be true for everyone, or for every department, but from what I heard the majority of people felt the same. I worked as a lifeguard, and got promoted to a head-lifeguard half way through the year.

Many people are shocked to learn I hated such a job, especially since I was a head-lifeguard. Some of my friends would say, “You get to sit in the sun all day, work on your tan, and look at hot chicks in bikinis! That sounds like a sweet gig to me.” The truth is that some of these factors actually made the job a bad one.

Yes I got to sit out in the sun all day, but I also had to wear a t-shirt all day to protect myself from the sun, so now I have terrible tan lines which most of my t-shirts do not cover. The shirt that I had to wear was a heavy cotton/polyester blend that did not breathe. It was torture having to wear that during the super hot and humid days this past summer.

It was not only the hot blistering days that made this job bad, but also the freezing cold and rainy ones. Valleyfair basically never closes so we would have to stand out in the freezing cold or blistering hot weather. We even had to stand out through severe thunderstorms. I remember one storm in particular, in which it was raining so hard I could not see across the pool; and once the rained eased up we could see lightning striking surrounding areas.

            Another thing that made this job lousy was the pay and the long hours. I got paid $8.10 an hour for being a head-lifeguard, which is less than most regular lifeguards make across the state. To add insult to injury, I worked 60+ hours every week, sometimes up to 70, and since it was a seasonal job, Valleyfair did not have to pay us overtime.



            Since I was working so many hours, I did not have time to see my good friends from high school, or do the things I enjoy doing. Yes I did get one day off a week, but after being outside and working 60+ hours al you want to do on your day off is stay inside and relax.





This job was not all bad, however, I had the chance to meet lots of fun people and make great friends. “The people here are the only thing that make this job bearable,” one of my fellow lifeguards said, “If it was not for them I would have quit long ago.” It was actually very difficult to find someone who liked their job, but I feel as though the pitfalls of the job brought us all closer together.



Lifeguards, trying to stay warm, during a cold day of trainin. Photo by Rachel Lentsch